The Festival of Outdoor Education
Join students and staff from the University of Hertfordshire School of Education’s postgraduate courses in outdoor environmental education for a pop-up outdoor education experience!
What is the Festival of Outdoor Education?
The Festival of Outdoor Education is a collaborative event with the Outdoor Environmental MSc at the University and is held at the University of Hertfordshire’s outdoor Bayfordbury Campus, which is a beautiful site of biodiversity and home to our observatory.
The event is designed not only to bring learning from inside the classroom to life, but to enable children to connect with nature and a university campus early in their education journey. This is pivotal in supporting positive health and wellbeing in our young people.
The activities are classed as ‘learning outside the classroom’, also known as experiential learning.
What Happens on the Day?
Learners spend the day at our outdoor education centre at our Bayfordbury Campus where they take part in a range of fun outdoor learning activities. Activities from past events include:
- Tree Identification
- Bugs and Mini-beast exploring
- Tricky Trails
- Poetry in the landscape
- Art from nature
- Natural Music
- Rope Ladder
- Fire Skills and Safety
- Nature Sculpting
- And much more!
Key information and documents
Here you will be able to download a copy of our event risk assessment for your trip planning.
Closer to the event you will be able to download a copy of a letter than can be sent home to parents/carers about the university visit.
Clothes, which parents/guardians do not mind getting dirty
Fleece/Jumper (with t-shirt and other layers underneath depending on weather)
Outdoor Trousers/Jogging bottoms (ideally not shorts, to alleviate the possibility of stings from nettles, etc).
A hat (either a woolly or sun hat – dependent on weather)
Gloves (depending on temperatures)
Waterproof coat (and waterproof trousers if you have them)
A pair of sturdy comfortable outdoor footwear
No open toes (unless for reasonable adjustment)
Trainers or wellington boots, (If choosing wellies, these should be worn with a warm pair of socks (as feet tend to get cold quickly when wearing wellies).
Sunglasses
A backpack which should contain the following:
At least one full drinks-bottle to start the day (we are only able to provide water on the day)
Snacks for breaks and lunch time
A packed lunch [there is nowhere on or near the site to purchase food; please ensure your child has enough food to keep them going throughout the day]
We also advise the wearing and bringing of Sun cream (ideally SPF 50)