Author: icwhy

May, and its national Outdoor Classroom Day on 21st. This is a global movement to make time outdoors part of every child’s day, with two days of action each year, urging teachers take children outdoors to play and learn.

I’ve made an effort to take one class outside regularly – fortunately, the class is small enough to fit around a picnic bench, so its been easy. No special planning or change to the lesson other than that. The results of this highly anecdotal and uncontrolled experiment: the students appear to get more done, are in a lighter mood, are generally more engaged. Maybe, I’m just in a better mood? There is plenty of well-run research to back this up. Much research focuses on young children, but research on secondary-aged pupils, suggests nature has an impact on learning.

Research by Clever Classrooms found “naturalness” (the role of light temperature and air quality) contribute half of the surroundings’ influence on learning. The greatest single contributory factor was light.

The end of the school year is in sight. School leadership and site managers’ thoughts turn to those big jobs that can only be done in the holidays. It’s hard to imagine any school being short of items on that to-do list, one job worth considering is digging up your playground. Here are three good reasons to go naturel where possibel (spelling?).

1. Mud – children’s immune systems are strengthened by playing in it. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/29/soil-sandpit-children-dirty-biodiversity-finnish-nurseries-research-microbes-bacteria-aoe
2. Sweat – over a summer month, a tarmac surface will heat the surrounding air 10 times more than a grass surface, according to the compelling work of Daniel Rüdisser https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7392210719703863296/
3. Tears – or the possible lack of them: studies suggest that natural environments improve communication and connections between people.

I was lucky enough to meet Professor Merideth Gattis at the launch of Learning Through Landscape’s School Grounds Collective. Over the most colourful canapes I’ve ever seen, she told me about her fascinating research into the effects of nature on our behaviour and how it has been shown to improve communication.This forms part of the growing body of academic work which highlights the non-physical role of nature on our lives. A seminal part of this was the Nature Restoration Theory, developed in the 1990s by Kaplan and Kaplan, which asserts that viewing nature has can replenish our attentional resources, specifically directional attention i.e. the type of focus needed for tasks demanding concentration and effort, like schoolwork.

Money is tight. Fortunately there are numerous sources of funding for improving school grounds. https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/funding/programmes/national-lottery-awards-for-all-england?utm_source=chatgpt.com

• Various sources compiled by the National Education Nature Park programme https://www.educationnaturepark.org.uk/finding-funding
• Groundwork https://www.groundwork.org.uk/?
• National Lottery Community Fund https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/? or Awards for All https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/funding/funding-programmes/national-lottery-awards-for-all-england/

Lovely to have a mention in the CIBSE Journal for the paper with Dr Stavroula Koutroumpi. On the surface, it looked like a literature review examining possible modelling techniques for including Green Infrastructure in compliance simulations, but it was more of an opinion piece.  

Reflecting on the Technical Symposium, it’s the connections that really make the event. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear what’s been on the minds of others in the industry – Tom Greenhill’s engaging presentation on the reduction of overheating made by yoghurt on windows stood out – but I particularly valued the informal discussions in the spaces around the talks. I was recommended a book I’ve been glued to, received lots of encouragement and food for thought for the paper’s main idea (#GetVegInTheRegs?), made some new connections with discussions of  collaborations underway and enjoyed an overdue catch up with Susie from Inkling and colleagues from the Bartlett.

Our paper was really about connections; those between neighbouring buildings that may shade or otherwise affect their microclimate and each other; the connections between buildings and the (currently ignored by compliance simulation) natural features around them; and the connection we have with nature. The majority of responses to the last consultation process on Part L and Part O of the Building Regs opted not to include trees because they could be cut down. How can we turn that into we are including the trees so that they aren’t cut down?

+/-40% difference in heating and cooling loads was found by Gobakis et al between models which couple the microclimate (including plants, but not just plants, also changes to view of the sky, wind speeds etc) to the building energy model.

The Australian National Home Energy Rating System (NatHERS) contains a simple methodology involving a small number of criteria (e.g. canopy dimensions, distance from building, optional shading schedule) for protected trees to be included in its models. It’s just trees and only those with a preservation order, but it’s a start: an acknowledgement of the difference trees and vegetation can make to the energy performance of buildings and to us.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. February. Its my birthday month and, apart from the obvious birthday cheer, I didn’t used to find much else to like about it. Even when some friends made a tropical fruit banquet and insisted we went to the beach for a picnic, we only lasted half an hour outdoors.

But latterly, I’ve invested in a better coat and looked a little closer at February. I have changed my mind. There’s plenty to like if we look for it.

In her excellent book The Wilderness Cure, Mo Wilde (born to be a foraging teacher) lives on foraged food for a year an is looking really closely at seasonal change. She advocates for shoe-horning in a fifth season: early spring, because it is so different from late spring. There are plenty of ancient traditions giving February “new year” status. Imbolc became St Brigid’s day in Ireland which warrants a bank holiday. Its half way between the winter solstice (day length change at its slowest) and the vernal equinox (day length change top speed). If nature were a sprinter, it would be in the “set” position at the start of a race. Teetering and anticipating what’s to come.

The sun rising a whole hour earlier by the end of the month is a very welcome addition to the mornings for those up early. And it only takes a few minutes of morning exposure to the sky to spark our physiology into peak performance. Andrew Huberman does a nice job of explaining our bodies’ mechanisms – how to harness them and avoid damaging them. He recommends 5 minutes of bright sky scaled to 20 minutes for dull sky and, importantly, we need this energy rush in our eyes within the first hour of waking if we want to set everything in motion for a good night of restorative sleep. He is very insistent that we mustn’t cheat: we must be outdoors unless physically impossible.

February, in the high-ish latitudes, with it’s palpably earlier dawn, increased birdsong and glimpses of blue sky makes this a pleasure. Who needs pineapples.

Take your pick of our seminars: from the likely changes in the new (New) London Plan and their effect on daylight in homes, to the effects of daylight on health, environmental design rules of thumb or design tips for good daylight. We’d love to join you over lunch. Email us for details.