Key Note Speaker Associate Professor Sue Waite, Plymouth University

Creating happy and healthy schools through outdoor learning

As concern about the decline in children's physical and mental health grows, schools are increasingly viewed as a public health resource to help stem the tide of childhood obesity and poor mental health. Yet how can this additional responsibility be squared with continuing pressures to drive up educational standards?

Associate Professor Sue Waite of Plymouth University will look at answering that question at this year's Learning Beyond the Classroom Conference. Looking at several recent studies conducted at the University of Plymouth, together we will consider how outdoor learning has great potential to combine multiple benefits for the health and wellbeing of children, and their teachers, and to meet other desired student outcomes.

Associate Professor Sue Waite was Reader in Outdoor Learning at the University of Plymouth and now holds honorary positions there and at Jönköping University in Sweden. She has researched and written extensively about outdoor learning and the health and wellbeing benefits of time spent in natural environments, including 'Children Learning Outside the Classroom from birth to 11' and 'The National Curriculum Outside' series.