Barefoot and Teaching Bravery with Harry Scott
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What is the importance of outdoor education for children?
Hi and welcome to School Shorts with me, Melissa Chan-Green, journalist and mum of two with a passion for education. In this episode, we're talking about outdoor education and particularly what that looks like in primary school years. But we're also looking at the benefits for families and how you can bring some of those skills and experiences into the things that you are doing with your kids at the weekend or after school. We're speaking with Harry Scott, who runs the Barefooted programme. They run programmes across schools in Auckland, as well as programmes for families across the city's parks. Harry, thank you so much for joining us.
Hi, thanks for having me.
So where did this idea come from?
How did Harry Scott's Barefooted program originate?
How long has Barefooted been around since the original idea?
Yeah, so it was actually one of my silver linings from COVID. So Barefooted started in 2020, so about halfway through the very first lockdown, because I was working in school camps and that sort of thing. And so obviously schools weren't going to camp or going back to camp anytime soon. So I kind of had the thought of like, well, if we can bring outdoor education to schools, maybe that might be something that they'll be keen for. And then also just there was so much messaging from the government around wanting the kids to be outside and not stuck in classrooms all the time. So it was like. a perfect opportunity it was like my silver lining of of of that to kind of go okay it's time to go out on your own and kind of start start my thing and and and get kids passionate about their community like and get them so they uh uh
you know, spent so many years teaching kids about really cool marine reserves or regional parks and that they'll probably never come back to. And so for me, it was like with Barefooted, if we can teach them the cool stuff to do in their school or in their local park, then for them to recreate that experience is so much more accessible and so much easier for them to do. And I think that's, been my big passion of like just allowing kids to have the chance to recreate it and to be passionate and to enjoy being outside again
There might be some people that go, can you recreate a school camp experience in a school? Because I have actually been along with you to a school, I have seen that, yes, you definitely can. And I'm going to ask you about how you do that soon. But I just want to stay a little with about how this idea came about, because... not only were schools not able to do certain things because of COVID, but you were seeing kind of before that a lot of schools saying it's actually getting a little too hard to go on camp or some schools kind of maybe had more resource to do it than others. So that was a concern for you too, right?
Yeah, like... for me it was like the outdoors being outside exploring playing is like a Kiwi rite of passage and it's part of our culture it's part of our identity it's who we are and that was getting lost because of accessibility you know because school camps were becoming more and more expensive so they couldn't go for as long or that EOTC camp turned into a bit of just a checkbox for that for schools to kind of go okay we need EOTC we go to school camp done what is EOTC just for people who wouldn't be familiar with that education outside the classroom right and so it turned into a well from what I felt it started to turn into a bit of a token thing Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love school camp.
What benefits does outdoor play offer for childhood development?
I can't wait to go on school camp with my kids once they get to that point and they have a place. But I just think we also need to be equipping our tamariki with skills and the comfortability of being outside before they get to year four, five or six school camp.
And bringing it into kind of their everyday life, whether it's at the weekend with family or just equipping them with the skills to be comfortable in the outdoors and know how to interact with it.
Yeah. And that was like one of my first programs that I ever developed for Barefooted was that... it was like a sensory based program so it was you know it was a term long program we work on our five senses and so each week we just focus on one of our senses because one of my big things that i was noticing is that the comfortability in outdoors was low you know kids didn't know how to engage they didn't know what to do when they were in there and they
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the importance of outdoor education for children?
0:02–0:48
2
How did Harry Scott's Barefooted program originate?
0:48–4:13
3
What benefits does outdoor play offer for childhood development?
4:13–8:21
4
How can parents facilitate outdoor play for their children?
8:21–12:00
5
What challenges do children face in connecting with nature today?
12:00–15:25
6
How can schools incorporate outdoor education effectively?
15:25–18:22
7
What role does risk management play in children's outdoor activities?
18:22–22:04
8
What are some practical outdoor activities families can enjoy together?
22:04–45:14
Speakers
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