Ferryden Primary School and Nursery Class is a non–denominational school located in the town of Montrose.  It is a small fishing village, which continues to have a small population of Montrose living in it. The current school roll is 149 children working across seven classes. There are 16 children in the nursery. 

The improvement issue

Ferryden Primary School’s outdoor areas are small and mainly concrete. Senior leaders and staff wanted to be creative and make best use of the outdoor space to provide children with more opportunities to learn outdoors. They considered how they could improve the grounds in the school to promote outdoor learning and sustainability, whilst making strong links across the curriculum.

What Ferryden Primary did 

Senior leaders created a timeline for improvements after considering the sustainable development goals with parents, staff and pupils. They considered other agencies and stakeholders who could help with the process, and to help build capacity within the staff team in delivering outdoor learning.

Senior leaders and staff began by using non class contact time to plan for outdoor learning and learning for sustainability. Parents were encouraged to design areas within the outdoor space, which would promote outdoor learning. This evolved into naming the garden ‘The Swan Den’. Children, staff and parents in the gardening club planted and cared for trees, flowers and vegetables. A fire pit was created with a seating area around it, so that children could make food and use it as an area to tell stories. A pond area has been created along with a wildflower garden, which is starting to establish eco systems and encourage wildlife. This will help children to study these in the future.

Senior leaders and staff learned from other schools in the local authority who had developed their outdoor offer. Senior leaders built capacity within the staff team through effective partnership working. They teamed up with an outdoor learning provider who trained staff in using fire pits and fire safety. A member of the teaching staff undertook forest schools training to build their capacity for next session. Other external providers have also been working with children in small, identified groups, to provide outdoor learning opportunities.

What the sustained impact has been 

Children now have a deeper understanding of the schools’ sustainable development goals. A sustainable eco fashion show supported children to be responsible citizens and effective contributors, and consider their global impact. There has been several cross curricular links with social sciences, technologies, numeracy and literacy.

Children have enjoyed growing and harvesting a range of crops. Children enjoyed learning about the cycle of planting, growing and harvesting different foods. This is helping them to develop well their skills for learning, life and work. Teachers provide children with opportunities to learn across different areas of the curriculum. For example, making different foods from harvested crops is creating learning links with numeracy, maths, literacy and science. Children now better understand the need to be sustainable.

Children understand better the importance of healthy eating and that fresh food does not have any additives. Children have achieved NOLA (National Outdoor Learning Awards) and John Muir awards in recognition of their success.