Outdoor Learning

Nash House children are outside everyday in their own dedicated outdoor learning area (under a retractable roof) come rain or shine. We have an impressive number of budding gardeners and pond dipping, woodland walks and outdoor craft in our nature reserve are favourite activities within the 50 acres of the school grounds. Children also regularly go further afield into the wider countryside when exploring topics such as harvest.

Little Stream’s forest school activities also use our woodland and nature reserve where children love learning from and not just in the outdoors. Activities and expeditions are designed to give all the children opportunities to work together, problem solve, encourage independent learning and to try new things where making mistakes is all part of the process! Shelter building, knot tying, cooking on an open fire, scavenger hunts, clambering and climbing, insect spotting, pond dipping, nature trail detective work, mud and wood craft are all tackled with great enthusiasm. A Year 4 highlight is also a visit to the Swattenden Activity Centre for a day of team building activities – think great heights and lots of mud.

To celebrate settling into Upper School, the children are all invited to spend a night sleeping under canvas in the school grounds. There is much excitement as the children spend the day involved in a multitude of fun and challenging outdoor team activities culminating in a sing-song around a large camp fire.

Children love this residential trip, spending two nights at the Hindleap Warren outdoor centre. It is challenging; both physically and sometimes emotionally. It is also exhilarating, requires large dollops of courage and excellent team work, and really draws out the caring and supportive side of all our children. Most of all it is enormous fun and immensely rewarding for all. An unforgettable rite of passage.

A fantastic bonding experience for children on the first week back at school, and a great way to set the benchmark for their senior years at school. The children walk the 6 miles from school to the Lordship Wood Campsite along the High Weald Landscape Trail and upon arrival are immediately immersed in a series of bushcraft skills sessions run by experts Greencraft. Over two nights and three days the children have the opportunity to learn how to make their own shelters, tie knots that won’t come undone, make fire using flints and natural resources, put up their own tents, and prepare and cook a rabbit. Everyone returns home filthy but with mile-wide smiles and that much more self-assured.

For the last 25 years we have been going to Snowdonia in June. It is the pinnacle of our Outdoor Education programme. The children stay three nights in a hostel at the top of Pen-y-Pass at the foot of Snowdon and one night up on the mountainside in tents. The children undertake a great number of unforgettable activities within the national park including rock climbing, kayaking, mountain rescue, and climbing to the summit of Snowdon. This is a fantastic way for the children to top off their time at Dulwich, pushing them out of their comfort zones in a very supportive yet challenging environment.

Our outdoor club is immensely popular with all Upper School children, providing them with the opportunity to fine-tune survival skills they learned on our expeditions – from fire making, den-building, scavenging, orienteering and cooking outdoors.