Every Child Matters aims to increase children’s well-being, as defined by five key outcomes: being healthy; staying safe; enjoying and achieving; making a positive contribution; achieving economic well-being.
Being healthy: well designed schools grounds are a vital element in encouraging physically active lifestyles, and can support the healthy eating agenda, through food growing projects. Emotional and mental health is also supported by well designed and managed school grounds.
Staying safe: school grounds obviously need to be safe environments, but not too safe. Children who are never allowed to take risks do not learn to manage risk in later life. Risk and challenge, for example using activity trails, should be provided to help children learn their capabilities and limitations.
Enjoying and achieving: school grounds improvement projects provide a real context for learning across the curriculum, and can also result in educational resources such as outdoor classrooms or habitats for field work.
Making a positive contribution: school grounds provide an ideal environment for developing participation skills. Learning through Landscapes consistently encourages a participative approach to school grounds development.
Achieving economic well-being: school grounds improvement projects of all scales provide opportunities for children to start to develop many essential skills for work, including decision-making and leadership, and qualities such as perseverance, creativeness and confidence. As well as learning from their own involvement in school grounds projects, children will also learn by observing and talking with professionals.
