As part of Welsh Government’s (WG) (2020) policy statement ‘Stay Safe. Stay Learning: Continuity of Learning’ in response to the COVID 19 pandemic and in accordance with Wales’ National Strategy for Educational Research and Enquiry (NSERE), WG commissioned a series of research studies with a focus on topics that may have been impacted by the pandemic. The purpose of this research was to produce evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to allow further planning for recovery, and to identify areas requiring support. The impact of school closures as a result of COVID-19 on the health and well-being of learners and teachers became one of the priority areas for research. Thus, this research focused on the health and wellbeing of learners and practitioners and the impact the pandemic had on them. Whilst the study was originally intended to support a return to school, another lockdown period and school closures occurred during the period of study which added a further layer of complexity to both the study and its findings.
This presentation reports the findings of the research with a particular focus on outdoor learning which was highlighted in the study. The WG return to school document explicitly recommended the use of outdoor learning to support children and young people's health and well-being, and to mitigate the risk of transmission of the virus by being outdoors. The research was conducted by a collaborative team from three HEIs in Wales and covered a range of school types across the whole country.