Outdoor Learning Made Easy has 5 Core Values that are at the heart of everything we do and all of our resources.
Our Core Values © form part of our unique outdoor curriculum, The Pioneer Scheme, but can also be used in isolation as a more flexible holistic approach that maps out aims and development of ‘life skills’ from ages 2 upwards.
It is available within our Teacher/ Leader Subscription HERE
Outdoor Learning Made Easy’s Core Values, and their corresponding animal mascots, can be found below:
Wellbeing and Emotional Intelligence
At Outdoor Learning Made Easy, we, and our 1st Mascot Spike the Hedgehog, strive to help improve both emotional intelligence and wellbeing through our fun and practical outdoor activities.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you. People with a high emotional intelligence know what they’re feeling, what their emotions mean, and how these emotions can affect other people. We believe emotional intelligence goes hand-in-hand with wellbeing. Wellbeing can be achieved through connecting with other people; being physically active; learning new skills; giving to others; and paying attention to the present moment (being mindful).
Self-Management of Risk
Our 2nd mascot, Amber the Fox helps to grow your children’s confidence to take and manage risks through our carefully written outdoor resources.
We believe that children should be able to take part in risky activities and should be involved in managing their own risks, to age and ability appropriate levels. Everyday life is full of risks and challenges and children need opportunities to develop the skills associated with managing risk and making informed judgements about risks from a very young age. Risky play helps to develop important life skill learnings such as building resilience and persistence.
Environmentally Friendly and Sustainable Attitudes
Our aim, along with our 3rd mascot Francois the Frog, is to connect more children and adults to their local environment through our resources in ways that can be maintained with minimal long-term environmental impacts.
We believe that Outdoor Learning should cause no harm to plants or wildlife; should not contribute to an increase of pollution and waste; avoid single-use of resources and plastic; and not change the natural biodiversity of an outdoor area.
Creativity and Imagination
Through our resources, our 4th mascot, Betty the Butterfly, helps to facilitate individuality and originality and enable children to develop innovative skills.
We strive to give children the confidence to imagine, explore and invent. Our resources are full of open-ended questions, tasks and challenges to inspire children to come up with their own solutions and ideas.
Resilience and Problem Solving Skills
Our 5th mascot, Swoop the Owl, will help to gently build their confidence to enable them to develop a positive growth mindset through our resources.
We help children to build ‘mental toughness.’ Children will learn to ‘bounce back’ after failures and persevere when faced with challenges. Not everything in life is easy, but it can be manageable if you have the resilience to cope. We believe children need to learn that making errors is a valuable part of learning.
