Publications

A Practitioner’s Guide: Top 20 tips of 2020

It was amazing to see how outdoor play and learning was fully embraced this year in spite of all the challenges. We all realised just how important the outdoors is- not just for our children but for the WHOLE family. As we face yet more restrictions at the start of the new year –

A Practitioner’s Guide: Bringing more play to the school day!

‘There is an untapped resource of highly trained play professionals within many out of school services across Scotland. Let’s build on this model of partnership and educate the “whole child” within our schools. Let’s not only strive to make Scotland the best place to grow up but a super place to be educated in

A Practitioner’s Guide: Childminder Takeover 1

Are you a childminder looking to do more outdoor play but aren’t sure where to start? Childminder extraordinaire Emma Smith is this week’s guest blogger, revealing her secrets to embracing and enjoying every opportunity to get outside. It’s a childminder takeover!

A Practitioner’s Guide: Creativity in the outdoors

Time to embrace getting creative outdoors! This week’s guest blog is from Matt Searles -Head of Learning at Jupiter Artland. In this blog he shares his thoughts on taking a creative approach to outdoor learning and more on learning creativity in the outdoors.

A Practitioner’s Guide: Experiences

The third of a series exploring the Play Pedagogy shared principles; interactions, spaces and experiences. We know that learning experiences provided in the earliest months and years in a child’s life are critical for their future success in life – here are a few key experiences that can make a big impact on the development

A Practitioner’s Guide: Flexi-schooling Fun

Are you a parent or carer interested in learning more about flexi-schooling and how it can offer up the opportunity to experience outdoor play and learning…then our latest blog is for you! This week’s guest blogger is Gemma Craigie-Sharland, Performance and Impact advisor here at Inspiring Scotland featuring her daughter.Gemma shares more on what

A Practitioner’s Guide: Foraging

Are you worried you don’t know your edible mushrooms from your less ‘savoury’ kind? Are you just not sure what it is or where to start? We asked a couple of foraging experts, Hamish from Baltic Street Adventure Playground and to Zoe at Earthtime for foraging know-how!

A Practitioner’s Guide: Forest Kindergarten Training

‘When we observed a Forest Kindergarten, I saw that the children were not afraid to climb trees to get mucky, but this is all positive risk taking. When children climb trees or get muddy, they are exploring and growing in resilience and confidence, it teaches them not to be afraid’- Mairead, Glasgow Clyde College

A Practitioner’s Guide: Getting Started

Are you a nursery looking to do more outdoor play but aren’t sure where to start? This week’s guest blogger is Vicki Shiels, manager of the Waterfront Nursery in Edinburgh. The Waterfront team have recently started on an exciting new outdoor adventure and this blog shares some of their first steps and tips to

A Practitioner’s Guide: Getting started with Bushcraft

Its a Scout leader takeover! This week’s guest blogger is Ignacio Luna Borras – Scout leader and founder of Earth Nature Adventures who shares his hints and tips on getting started with Bushcraft and how it can offer up the opportunity to experience more outdoor learning and the chance to connect more deeply with

A Practitioner’s Guide: Home-Schooling Ideas for Outdoor Learning

Taking home-schooling outdoors! Top Tips for Incorporating Outdoor learning into your home-schooling schedule! Once again we all find ourselves in the midst of another lockdown with the prospect of becoming ‘teacher’ as well as parent again seeming rather daunting to many of us. But fear not the Thrive Outdoors team are on hand with

A Practitioner’s Guide: Interactions

Interactions are where the powers of nature and human nature meet. Dr Lynn McNair of Cowgate Under 5s Centre in Edinburgh talks fish faces, strong air, and enjoying the magic of discovery in this week’s guide exploring child and adult interactions in the outdoor environment.

A Practitioner’s Guide: Lets talk Cohorts

Are you interested in learning more about what forest school nursery involves? and how it can offer up the opportunity to experience more outdoor play and learning…then our latest blog is for you! This week’s guest blogger is Zoe Sills, Nursery Manager at Earthtime Forest School Nursery. Zoe shares all her hints and tips

A Practitioner’s Guide: Play and Wellbeing Tips

The power of play! This week’s blog is from us at Thrive to raise awareness of the benefits of play on a child’s mental health. As some of you may know it is Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week and we thought it might be useful to offer up some handy tips and activities for

A Practitioner’s Guide: Play in Primary Schools

It’s a Primary School takeover! This week’s guest blogger is Natalie Campbell, Education and Outreach manager & Forest school manager at Earthtime who shares her top tips for incorporating Play in Primary Schools! Free play at any age or stage allows for opportunities to be creative, test and develop problem solving skills, build relationships

A Practitioner’s Guide: Roberta’s Outdoor Learning Story

Roberta’s story- ‘My outdoor learning journey!’ Back in 2017, Thrive Outdoors started working with Glasgow City Council to create collaborative nursery partnerships across the city to explore outdoor play and learning. One of these partnerships was the Welly Wanderers led by the Jeely Piece Club and involving eight local nurseries in Castlemilk. We caught

A Practitioner’s Guide: Spaces

Is going outdoors like stepping into the unknown? Alastair Davidson shares his approach to establishing an outdoor space for use in the early years.

A Practitioner’s Guide: The joy of wintertime outdoor play

Time to embrace winter weather! This week’s guest blog is from Dr Claire Warden from Mindstretchers Academy. In this blog Dr Claire shares how she believes embracing winter can bring about many new opportunities for outdoor play and learning as well as some top tips on keeping warm and dry. An interesting and informative

A Practitioner’s Guide: Therapeutic Powers of Play

‘Birds fly, fish swim, children play’ -Garry L. Landreth, Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship In this week’s guest blog we hear from Deidre a play therapist based in Ireland who shares the therapeutic benefits of play and some handy play tips and activities for both parents and practitioners.

Active Play Evaluation Summary

Active Play: Physical Activity by Stealth. Download a summary of independent evaluations & research into Active Play.

Active Play Literature Review April 2016

This brief literature review by the University of Strathclyde PhD student Avril Johnstone provides the background literature to the evaluation of Inspiring Scotland’s Active Play Programme. The evaluation has the following research question: does the implementation of an active play programme improve physical activity levels and fundamental movement skills competency in children?

Evaluation of Active Play in Glasgow by Blake Stevenson – Dec 2016

Read the independent evaluation by Blake Stevenson into the impact of Active Play in Glasgow. This report covers the first cohort of pupils to take part in the programme from August 2016 and was completed in December 2016.

Funders of Play 2018

This guide contains eligibility, priority and contact details of organisations funding not-for-profit and charitable organisations in Scotland. It has been complied for Inspiring Scotland’s Thrive Outdoors programme and therefore focusses on potential funders of play activities. Funders have been selected through a review of SCVO’s ‘Scottish Directory of Funding for Third Sector Organisations’ and a

Go2Play Outcome and Evaluation Framework

Download the original Go Play Outcome and Evaluation Framework, set out in 2011, which established the principles of Inspiring Scotland’s play programme. The guide identifies ways that play organisations can realistically demonstrate their difference though the use of evidence and helps the play sector to identify common ground to assess how play organisations can have the

Loose Parts Play Toolkit 2019 edition

We are pleased to announce the publication of the revised edition of the Loose Parts Play Toolkit. The updated Toolkit provides a greater focus on helping adults develop the skills to support inclusive, all-weather outdoor play in Scotland and encourage them to allow children to play in a less structured and more imaginative manner. Since

Out to Play – creating outdoor play experiences for children: practical guidance

This document is a step-by-step guide providing practical advice on how to access outdoors spaces, including land or forest areas owned by local authorities, private landowners or national bodies (such as the Forestry Commission and Scottish Natural Heritage) to create safe, nurturing and inspiring outdoor learning experiences.

Play Champions Toolkit

This Play Champion Toolkit is designed to support partners working with Primary schools to engage in more activity that is playful within their school day. It outlines a programme, which play workers can use to support primary school children to become ‘leaders’ of play. It is designed for play charities working with schools, school staff

Play Ranger Toolkit

This Play Ranger Toolkit was developed using the experience and learning of Play Ranger charities supported by Thrive Outdoors, initially under its former name Go2Play. The Play Rangers project focused on providing opportunities for children to access free play within their community – on street corners, or in local parks or woodland. The toolkit is

Scotland’s Coalition for Outdoor Play and Learning Position Statement

In 2018, we brought together a broad group of academics and organisations from education, childcare, healthcare, environment and government to create Scotland’s Outdoor Play and Learning Coalition. The Coalition created a bold position statement which committed signatories to working together to embed playing and learning outdoors as an everyday activity and a fundamental part

Supporting Outdoor Childcare Provision A3 Guide

This printable A3 guide is designed to show the range of possibilities when designing or developing high quality outdoor childcare provision. The guide includes examples of practice combined with site-specific and appropriate design and covers: site & access, shelter, toilets & handwashing, eating, clothing and play material . You may also find the Outdoor ELC

Supporting Outdoor Play Provision

This guide is designed to show you the range of possibilities when designing or developing high quality outdoor childcare provision. The list provides examples of practice combined with site-specific and appropriate design.

Thursday Think Piece-Connection to Nature

For our first Thursday Think Piece we have a longer more informative blog from Jo Fitzpatrick- Learning Outdoors Development Officer here at Thrive Outdoors. This blog is a continuation on from Jo’s Tuesday Tips on the same subject of ‘Connection to Nature.

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