When designing outdoor learning environments, it is crucial to adopt a collaborative approach to create meaningful spaces. Well-designed outdoor spaces can be a selling point for families enrolling their children, considering factors such as the family’s demographic and location. Children require space, love, water, and vitamin D to grow and develop, and well-designed outdoor environments offer significant advantages for their development.
There are several staples that contribute to an outdoor landscape design for an early learning centre, including sandpits, cubby houses, obstacle courses, mud pits/kitchens, softfall climbing areas, and bike tracks. However, emerging design elements should not be overlooked, such as swings and monkey bars, loose parts zones, fire pits, water tracks, vegetable gardens, chicken coops, workstations like woodworking areas, and natural bush materials.
Under the National Quality Framework and The Children’s National Law, approved providers must ensure that outdoor spaces at their services allow children to explore and experience the natural environment. The National Quality Standard related to Quality Area 3: ‘Physical environment’ requires services to provide outdoor environments with natural materials, sustainable practices, multiple purposes, and encourage active play and independent exploration. The Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations also emphasizes the importance of outdoor learning spaces in Australian learning environments, fostering open-ended interactions, risk-taking, exploration, discovery, connection with nature, environmental awareness, and ongoing environmental education.
If the outdoor space is “outside,” it should be designed to be as natural as possible, incorporating natural areas, environmental features, and plants to engage children in nature and learning about their world. When designed with children’s opportunities in mind, these spaces promote respect for the natural environment and the interdependence between plants, animals, people, and the world around them. A well-designed outdoor space will make your early childhood center one of the best-designed spaces in your area.
Simulated outdoor environments, on the other hand, are becoming a trend in centres located in highly dense populations or cities with space constraints. These environments, designed around concrete pillars and featuring synthetic grass, murals, and artificial trees, can be a viable alternative for centres with limited space if designed appropriately. However, they also come with certain disadvantages. Risky play, open-ended interactions, spontaneity, and exploration of the natural world are limited in simulated outdoor spaces. The development of resilience and immunity in children is not sustained, and the designs often lack important elements, resulting in challenges for service approvals. Natural elements like plants and water may be dismissed due to building constraints, and the importance of natural light, ventilation, and sustainable programs can be overlooked.
While some centres may be granted exemptions or waivers for not meeting the minimum requirements of outdoor spaces, investors and owner operators should carefully consider the suitability of these centres. If a centre’s design cannot meet the basic requirements for a child’s early learning development in city spaces, alternative and more appropriate locations should be sought. It is important to prioritise the well-being and holistic development of children in the design and planning process of outdoor learning environments.
To learn more about crafting enriching outdoor environments for early learning centres, turn to the expertise of The ECE Agency. Cultivate spaces where nature meets nurture.
“We value space, to create a handsome environment and its potential to inspire social, affective and cognition learning.
The space is an aquarium that mirrors the ideas and values of the people who live in it.”
Loris Malaguzzi
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