Outdoor Classroom Day
Outdoor Classroom Day is a global movement to inspire and celebrate outdoor play and learning, at home and at school. On Outdoor Classroom Day itself, which has two dates each year, teachers celebrate with a special day outdoors for their class.
Dorset Coast Forum celebrate Outdoor Classroom Day every Spring and Autumn and invite Dorset coastal schools and communities to join us in celebrating our coast. We offer opportunities for schools to join us out and about on the coast to learn about their local coastline in a fun and interactive way.
If your school or community group are interesting in taking part, please contact us to find out if we have a project in your area.
Coming up .......Outdoor Classroom Day Baiter Park Poole - 22 May 2025
Schools in the Poole are are invited to take part in a range of inspiring and creative activities where we encourage young inquisitive minds to learn more about their local environment. Our offer is FREE and open to KS2-5. Dorset Coast Forum have joined forces with partners to offer these free hosted STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) sessions on
Thursday 22 May 2025 between 9.30am-2pm Baiter Park, Poole
How you can get involved:
- Interested schools can get more information and are asked to register their interest by 17 March 2025 directly by contacting the organiser Dorset Coast Forum Project Officer Sara Parker via email at sara.parker@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk or by calling 07780 148790.
- Sessions will be booked on a first come first served basis.
- Once registered, you will be sent a choice of activities for booking – most activities will last 15-20 minutes so that pupils can enjoy several sessions within an hour, or if your school would like to spend the day with us with different year groups we will try and accommodate you.
- All participating schools will be expected to ensure that they have suitable numbers of adults to accompany their students – we guarantee all staff will have fun too!
- Our offer is inclusive to all and supports elements of the curriculum – we are particularly keen to ensure that pupil premium students in the Poole area can get involved so please do contact Sara if there are any barriers to participation which we can try to accommodate.
- Your visit becomes an Outdoor Classroom Day event, and you can upload your experiences onto the Outdoor Classroom Day website to show how you took part and share with your school community!
Chesil Cove Outdoor Classroom Day
January 2025
Dorset Coast Forum visited Year 6 and Year 10 students at the Atlantic Academy, Portland. Due to the weather it was a mixture of indoor and outdoor classroom day with a range of activities covering coastal management. A tour of the coastal defences at Chesil Cove, Portland took place in the classroom using Google Earth. The highlight of the day being the wave tank demonstrating how different flood defences work. A quick tour of the Great Gale 1824 exhibition showing the impact of an extraordinary storm 200 years ago in Portland and throughout the Dorset coast helped us to consider how coastal defences now help protect our coasts and communities.
See the wave tank in action in the video below.
Swanage Outdoor Classroom Day November 2024
Dorset Coast Forum Project Officer Sara and artist Andy Knill Art celebrated Outdoor Classroom Day 2024 on the 7th November. Pupils of St George’s, St Mary’s and St Mark’s schools and community group @allsortd joined them on Swanage seafront to view and learn more about why this coastal flood protection scheme is so vital. They followed the Flooding Swanage with Art trail on the temporary flood defence blocks along the seafront from the Mowlem to Gee Whites.
Art trail leaflets are available from Swanage Information Centre and you can find out more about the
Swanage Wave Barrier Art Project November 2023
Children from 3 Swanage Schools were taken on a ‘Talking Art Walk’ along the seafront to see the Flooding Swanage with Art project with DCF Project Officer Sara Parker and local artist Andy Knill.
Swanage Seafront May 2023
Swanage schools joined DCF and educational experts from Sustainable Swanage and the Environment Agency and took part in hands-on science and technology activities.