MLO was an international action-research project that aimed at promoting the practice of outdoor education through a play-based and physical activity approach in preschools. The motivation behind the project was to design a set of practical tools that could be useful to change this paradigm so that children in pre-schools use the outdoors as a place where they can learn and develop through outdoor play, autonomy, independent movement, contact with nature and their communities.
Cross-border/international
Portugal
Other
Norway
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Estonia
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Greece
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Croatia
Torres Vedras, Portugal
Lisbon, Portugal
Athens, Greece
Trondheim, Norway
Tallinn, Estonia
Zagreb, Croatia
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
ERASMUS
Key-Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action: Strategic Partnerships
Action Type: Strategic Partnerships for school education
Main Objective of the project: Innovation
Call: 2017
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Torres Vedras Municipality (Câmara Municipal de Torres Vedras) Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Rodrigo Last name of representative: Ramalho Gender: Male Nationality: Portugal Function: Director of the Department of Education and Physical Activity Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Câmara Municipal de Torres Vedras, Av. 5 de outubro Town: Torres Vedras Postal code: 2560-270 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 918 773 370 E-mail:rodrigoramalho@cm-tvedras.pt Website:https://www.cm-tvedras.pt/
MLO was an international action-research project that aimed at promoting the practice of outdoor education through a play-based and physical activity approach in preschools.
The knowledge and scientific background about cultural differences regarding the approach to preschool learning processes between Northern and Southern European countries served as starting points to devise this project. In Northern countries, namely in Scandinavia, the preschool curriculum and practice are predominantly based in play and child led strategies, in which autonomy and the contact with natural environments are privileged. While in the South, the pedagogical practices are strongly defined by the pursuit of academic success and standardized adult led processes, which privilege indoor sitting activities to foster the learning of writing, reading and counting skills. Therefore, the underlying motivation behind the MLO project was to devise a set of practical tools that could be useful to change this paradigm, in order for children in preschools to use the outdoor as a place where they can learn and develop through outdoor play, autonomy, independent movement, contact with nature and their communities.
Being so, MLO had the following objectives:
- Drawing changes on the perceptions of policy makers, teachers, caretakers and parents on the possibilities of the outdoor as a rich and valuable environment for preschool children’s learning, development and well-being.
-Improving pedagogical competences of preschool teachers and caretakers working with children in the outdoor environment, adopting physical activity and play based strategies.
These objectives were achieved through the implementation of different activities and tasks involving children, preschool staff members, parents and municipality staff with the purpose of changing adult perception regarding the benefits of outdoor play and the use of outdoor pedagogical resources when working with preschool children.
Preschool
Outdoor
Learning
Play
Physical activity
Currently, there is a growing concern about low levels of physical activity and health-related problems in young children. Sedentary lifestyles in modern societies are a global problem and start early in life. Furthermore, there is a dramatic decrease in children's opportunities to play freely, particularly with regard to contact with the outdoors and with nature, or elements of nature.
Playing in outdoor environments is fundamental to promoting children's health and development. Children's outdoor play in general is of great importance for increasing physical activity, which in turn has a number of positive health effects.
With this in mind, 12 activities were developed with the aim of creating new play environments with new possibilities for action: spontaneous play with loose materials (both natural and recycled) and in low-cost permanent spaces, contact with natural elements, use and exploration of spaces outside the kindergartens, outdoor meals, physical activity exercises and activities focused on the creative process and self-expression.
Nature and loose materials were the great allies of the children's play. These are resources that any school has at its disposal and that make learning much more meaningful for children. Learning in nature means restoring the feeling of belonging, since we are part of it, allowing us to respect it, care for it, play with it and learn from it.
The impact of these activities in the participating preschools from Croatia, Estonia, Greece and Portugal was very positive since the activities were rated as “very important” or as “important”, as being beneficial for different domains of child development, and also because all teachers/caretakers intended to repeat these activities in the future.
The composing of scientific and pedagogical resources, allowed to evaluate the impact of training and the implementation of the 12 activities and the contribution to the change of perception from parents and caretakers about playing outdoor, which we can confirm it had a positive effect. Most of the parents (52,5%) and caretakers (80,4%) have incorporated new practices in the daily routine when they have the children under their care and 57,6% of parents and 74,5% of the caretakers have positively changed their perception about the children playing outdoor.
For the preschool teachers this experience allowed a greater awareness (and change of attitude) about the importance of education through the use of physical activity and risky outdoor play, despite different weather conditions; application of new methods and tools for outdoor educational activities; increased ability to contribute to the child’s physical and motor, social, emotional and cognitive development; awareness of the atmosphere inside and outside the classroom which provides for new ways of organising the school year and its activities; improvement of schools and teachers' curricula; development of relations with parents and their greater involvement with the school; awareness of teamwork developed in a multicultural and multidisciplinary context; and more motivated staff.
All partners involved children from schools with different contexts and backgrounds, therefore some of them had fewer opportunities. Due to cultural differences, parents from Greece and Portugal, for example, identified more barriers for playing outside than parents from the other countries. In particular, the Portuguese and Croatian school involved children with special educational needs while testing the materials of MLO project, namely with autism.
All the 12 activities were also planned and adapted for children with special needs. In each activity, suggestions are given for creating conditions of accessibility, both in terms of physical spaces and the use of materials.
Learning and playing outdoors plays a key role in a child's early development. It teaches essential life skills, builds confidence and improves behaviour.
With these 12 activities that incorporate play and affordances, children will be more likely to discover what they need in terms of 'being' and 'becoming', and derive motor, social, emotional and cognitive development benefits from these activities, not only immediately but also after the activity. This is important for all children and especially children with special educational needs.
Parents:completed a questionnaire to assess parental perception on children’s use of the outdoor environment as a promoter of a physically active and playful learning, therefore were involved in the project from the beginning. First, they were supporters and later became actors who understood the importance of the main project goals, by making use of the project materials with their own children and disseminating this information to their peers.
Teachers:were involved through a semi-structured interview to assess their perception on children’s use of the outdoor environment as a promoter of a physically active and playful learning. They have been involved through everyday activities, working directly in the application and through the whole project from the initial assessment to preparation, implementation and evaluation of the activities, by participating in: report and discuss improvements; disseminate the acquired knowledge to in their communities; sharing articles in local the newspapers and magazines for schools. For registering activities, photos and videos were taken to record children’s behavior in the outdoor. Finally, they were involved in the presentation of project results.
Caretakers:a focus-group to assess caretakers’ perception on children’s use of the outdoor environment as a promoter of a physically active and playful learning. Therefore, data was gathered from them and project activities were put into practice with their respective organizations.
Children – have been involved in the project as main actors and were actively involved in the design and evaluation of the 12 activities. A photo diary for children to record themselves and their peers’ behavior in the outdoor was made as well as photo-voice and focus groups for children mediated by their teachers to discuss the perceptual recordings of their outdoor behaviors.
Other relevant stakeholders, as schools and education related institutions were engaged by implementing the Didactic-Pedagogical Resources Pack for teachers and caretakers and the Teacher’s Training resources pack; using the Outdoor Activities Guidelines and Recommendations for Preschool Education as a basis for raising awareness and changing behaviours; and redesigning outdoor school playgrounds.
Experts were involved by attending Multiplier Events and through personal communication, executing the investigation work, the construction of the outputs and the theoretical framework.
Policy makers were also involved by attending Multiplier Events and through personal communication and with a key role in the decision making, making it possible to privilege the use of outdoor space in the school environment.
The presence of experts on child development and students in national and regional conferences, in which the MLO project was presented, was very important to draw the attention of scholars to the social issues underlying the project and as an inspiration to carry out research and to lecture about play in their syllabus. The conferences played a crucial role in advocating for the importance of local authorities, local policy makers and other relevant stakeholders to prioritize free play and physical activity in children’s agenda when they are in school but also in other places of their community.
All of this, together with the media coverage of the project, contributed to the dissemination of the project and therefore, to the involvement of other not foreseen stakeholders.
The municipality of Torres Vedras (MTV) invited the Motor Behavior Laboratory of the Human Kinetics University (HKU), to conceive an international action-research project that would privilege play based and outdoor pedagogical practices of early childhood education as promoters of children’s health and well-being. This project included a diagnosis of the use of outdoor for pedagogical activities and free play as well as an assessment of the perceptions of teachers, caretakers, staff and parents regarding the use of the outdoor; a collection of training resources pack and communication materials; and a set of guidelines as best practice indicators. The HKU was responsible to devise the project in terms of methodologies, scientific and interventional approaches and dissemination of the research findings in international peer reviewed journals and academic conferences.
The Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education, in Norway, was an important partner as well. Professionals from that institution are recognized worldwide as experts on teaching of outdoor play and learning in Early Childhood Education Centres, as well as conducting research studies in this area. In this way, it was important to have them included as partners in the project so that their good practices could be shared among the other participants.
Payzontas Greek NGO was also included in the project due to their work in Greece in projects related with play provision and play advocacy.
The project involved all partners in its different roles, working as an organism where each part contributes to the whole, having its specific role: the educational community (children as main actors, parents as informants, educators and caretakers as participating observers); the investigators who analysed all results and transformed them in new practices and guidelines; and the municipality as a local policy maker and disseminator, allowing the results to go back to the schools and to the children.
The MLO project is innovative in a sense that was developed by 4 different types of entities (municipality, preschools, university and NGO), aspiring the same goal: promoting a cultural change on the paradigm of the learning and development of children attending the participant preschools, towards a more child-play-nature friendly education.
The different entities contributed with different mindsets to the development of the project finds and production of the outputs. In one hand, the Universities had the role to lead the investigation, preparing the instruments, analyze the data, condense and prepare the information and tools. On the other hand, the preschools and the NGO experienced the tools created with their staff and children and were able to test and understand the impact of the project in the preschool’s daily life. The Municipality, as the leading organization, was responsible for widely disseminate the project and promote physical activity, gradually leading citizens to acquire healthier living habits through outdoor movement while making MLO an important tool for reinforcing the need of working towards a more open society and promoting play-based and physical activity approach in preschools. For all partners this project was innovative due to its focus in the involvement of children, teachers, parents and other adults in the community.
Although partnerships and investigation projects that involve more than one type of organization might be common, the reality is that the implemented activities are usually unidirectional. However, for MLO project all activities’ success relies on the multidirectional approach of the investigation-action.
The objective of MLO is for its resources to be used not only by partner preschools but also by other preschools and educational entities working with children, to foster and promote playing outdoors and the change of mentalities from all actors involved in children education, towards this matter. Therefore, especially Output 1 and Output 2 were made with this mindset, by creating friendly-user tools, accessible to anyone who wants to implement MLO methodology in their organization.
The organizations are now able to use the project resources, either by applying the entire methodology or applying only the training pack (Output 1) and/or the 12 activities (Output 2). This is done, not only by having the Outputs available for download in the project website in a permanent way, but also via a lighter version from the report that was already prepared by the MTV.
This document came out in a form of a small booklet that was delivered to the local preschools. In the MTV, it is going to be implement the training under MLO methodology to the local teachers, educators and caretakers. As a political strategy, it is in the MTV best interest to continue the promotion of all the projects they are involved in. Also this project served for MTV to lever the promotion of healthier lifestyles projects and to redesign the school’s outdoor spaces. In addition to the expected contribution to the enrichment of the kindergarten teacher’s work, it intends to extend the concept to the projects already developed by the Municipality.
The project partners were also encouraged to translate the documents and to disseminate it through the local and national pre-schools and other relevant stakeholders, namely, their municipalities, other entities responsible for educational policies and the national Erasmus+ agencies.
MLO project approached a methodological framework constituted by 4 approaches:
• Conceptual-conceptualization of data collection materials and subsequent training activities.
• Descriptive-portraying children’s perceptions and behavior in the socio-physical environment.
• Participant-active involvement of teachers and children as active co-researchers in the project.
• Comprehensive-producing scientific knowledge (papers, reports and other outputs) based on the juxtaposition of the 3 previous methodological approaches.
After an initial diagnosis, the activities planned for this project aimed to contribute to 3 major outputs: Teacher’s training pack; Didactic-pedagogical resources pack; Outdoor Activities Guidelines for Preschool Education.
Being an action-research project, it was very important to have an open methodology, allowing space to observe, analyse, critical thinking, collect the contributes from all partners and proceed with the project foreseen activities, keep the objectives of the project in mind and having the necessary flexibility to adapt the activities foreseen to the different scenarios.
Being so, the activities were organized in 3 Activity Work Packages: it was prepared the data collection pack for the different stakeholders and it was assessed the perception of the different stakeholders about the outdoor used by the children in each country; it was prepared and delivered the training for teachers and caretakers; and the activities’ implementation was assessed, as well the perception from the different stakeholders about the outdoor used by children was assessed again, in a lighter way than the initial assessment, leading to the production of the project conclusions and the recommendations and guidelines for preschools.
Each activity was defined from the findings and conclusions reached in the preceding one. They were interdependent when it came to the delivery of final outputs, as they all contribute to their definition.
MLO contributed to supporting efforts to increase access to affordable and high-quality early childhood education and care and promoting the acquisition of skills and competences.
This is visible through the objectives that were set out and achieved with this project: (1) Drawing changes on the perceptions of policy makers, teachers, caretakers and parents on the possibilities of the outdoor as a rich and valuable environment for preschool children’s learning, development and well-being, (2) Improving pedagogical competences of preschool teachers and caretakers working with children in the outdoor environment, adopting physical activity and play based strategies.
These objectives were achieved through the implementation of different activities and tasks involving children, preschool staff members, parents and municipality staff with the purpose of changing adult perception regarding the benefits of outdoor play and the use of outdoor pedagogical resources when working with preschool children.
Considering the current state of the art and the concerns and barriers for children’s outdoor play, it is important to carry out initiatives and projects that comprise both scientific and interventional domains in a cross-cultural perspective.
MLO contributed to empower teachers, caretakers and educators to transform their daily practice with children, providing the preschool and staff with the necessary tools, skills and competences to improve and promote playing outdoor, allowing a change of mentality and paradigm in this matter and promoting a better and healthier lifestyle for the children, thus contributing to: preventing early school leaving, improving children’s future academic results and changing behaviours and adopting healthier life styles.
The intention is to maximize all the investment made in the implementation of this project, not only through the dissemination of its results but also in preschool ant other levels of teaching, spreading its dynamics.
The involvement and coordination of the process highlights the strategic importance the municipality faces in this area, however, it is not only a question of reformulating the schools outer space, but of captivating the entire educational community for its fruition. Through the demonstration of interest already manifested by all the group of schools in the county, in the monitoring of this projects and its results, an essential part of human capital is guaranteed to consolidate the built concept.
The conclusion of the project was the catalyst for changing mentalities and processes. In the long term, it is intended that the privilege of exploring outer space for the acquisition of physical, emotional, social and cognitive skills is a natural routine in the school context and seen as an essential part of the educational process. This process will allow the next generations to acquire, at an earlier stage, healthier habits of physical activity and relationship with the external environment.
From the preschools point of view, they will continue to develop their work as caretakers and educators, but with a renewed confidence based of the implementation of child based activities.
