As teachers, we know that children who develop key skills such as critical thinking or the ability to work with others, progress quicker, achieve more and attain better grades than their peers. However, with curriculum activities taking up much of the timetable, it’s hard to squeeze in the extra hours needed to practice and hone these skills. Thankfully, this area of learning is not confined to the classroom and with the right outdoor play resources in place, children can develop the skills during free time and in outdoor lessons.

In this post, we’ll look at six key skills that can be developed through outdoor play.

There will be many times during a student’s school career when working with others will play an essential part in helping them learn. Group work and collaborative learning are key aspects of today’s classroom environment and those children who have the skills to work with other students perform better, learn more and progress quicker.

There are a number of ways you can help students develop these skills in the playground. A Team Adventure Zone, for example, is a trim trail with a difference: it’s an obstacle course designed for children to complete as a team. In order to successfully get from one end to the other, they will need to work together. This is great playground equipment to help students develop their collaborative skills whilst having lots of fun at the same time. It’s a good resource for developing critical thinking, too.

When it comes to getting children thinking creatively it is often better to give them unstructured time in a safe environment where they have the freedom to think outside of the box. To do it right, you also need to provide the resources to motivate them and there is a lot of playground equipment that does just that.

There’s opportunity for drawing with our outdoor art and design boards or making music with our fabulous range of fixed, outdoor musical instruments. For the more dramatically minded, we’ve also got a range stages where children can rehearse and perform to fellow students. All these can be used to inspire children to engage in and develop creative thinking during break times or as part of an outdoor lesson.

The term ‘being personally effective’ encompasses a range of skills which are useful for helping children have a more mature attitude towards learning – the ability to set goals, take on challenges, divide larger projects into smaller steps, be resilient and experience achievement.

Once again, there are a lot of these skills which can be developed through outdoor play and, with some clever playground planning from the school, these opportunities can be given. For example, climbing and traversing walls built over safe playground flooring, give children the chance to set themselves new goals and challenges. To meet those challenges, they will need to break the larger climb down into smaller steps and they’ll need to develop resilience before they finally succeed. The same skills can be learned on a whole range of kids’ climbing equipment.

Developing good communication skills is vital for a successful learning journey and needs to start at a very young age. One of the best ways to get the process started is through roleplay where children can experiment with communicating in a range imagined scenarios.

Children are good at inventing roleplay but it works best when they are provided with the props and set that can be the inspiration for their made-up worlds. Here at ESP Play, we have a wide selection of roleplay playground equipment to prompt every child into action. These include stages, storytelling chairs, play huts, bridges, a carriage and even a wooden train.