Learning Through Landscapes

Learning through Landscapes helps children to connect with nature, become more active, learn outdoors, develop social skills and have fun. We want to share our passion for creating stimulating outdoor learning and play experiences for young people in the UK.

We operate in Scotland as Grounds for Learning (http://www.ltl.org.uk/scotland/index.php) and in Wales as LTL Cymru (http://www.ltl.org.uk/wales/index.php).

Our vision

Our vision is that every child benefits from stimulating outdoor learning and play in their education.

What we do

We aim to enable children to connect with nature, be more active, be more engaged with their learning, develop their social skills and have fun!

Where possible we encourage young people to have a say in the way their grounds are used and improved. As a result they learn to create and look after something valuable; their self-esteem grows and their behaviour improves, along with their potential to learn and achieve.

We do this through three avenues:

• advocating the benefits of outdoor learning and play at school and pre school.
• inspiring and enabling the design and development of outdoor environments to support children’s development.
• inspiring and enabling teachers and early years practitioners to develop the confidence, ideas and skills they need to make better use of outdoor spaces.

We focus our resources on educational settings, because we believe that this is where children will derive the greatest benefit. The school playground is the one outside space that children have frequent access to. Despite the proven benefits of outdoor learning and play, 8 in 10 teachers believe that their school is failing to make the most of these valuable spaces for children.

Our values

This approach is guided by three core values which guide everything we do. We believe that we can achieve the greatest impact by:

• inspiring by sharing good practice and creative ideas.
• enabling schools and settings to engage their children to find solutions to their own needs.
• influencing the policy environment within which schools and settings operate.

What makes us different?

We are the only UK charity specialising in outdoor learning and play in education. Our unrivalled knowledge and expertise is based on twenty years experience of practical action and research.

We aim to reach all schools and settings in England, Scotland and Wales. Our staff work in the three home nations. In Wales we operate as LTL Cymru and in Scotland as Grounds for Learning. We deliver services on the ground through an expanding network of freelance LTL accredited associates.

The difference we make

Our surveys of schools who have improved their grounds demonstrate the benefits:

• 85% of teachers said it resulted in more creative learning and environmental awareness.
• 85% said that healthy active play had increased.
• 65% observed improved attitudes to learning.
• 73% said behaviour had improved
• 64% reported reduced bullying
• 84% reported improved social interaction

Find out more about why our work is so important for children and young people here: http://www.ltl.org.uk/childhood/index.php