Nature Deficit to Nature Surplus

Early childhood pioneers and educationalists have been advocating the importance of children being in nature since the late nineteenth century. Froebel, Montessori, McMillan, Isaacs, Steiner and Dewey all espoused the benefits of children spending time outdoors, in hands-on, real life, nature-based learning.

Forest Kindergardens were established in Denmark in the 1950s and in the 1990s, a group of early childhood educators from Bridgwater (in Somerset) visited Denmark, leading to the UK wide Forest School programme, which swept the globe in the 2000s.

Despite this, in 2005, Richard Louv, in his seminal book 'Last Child in the Woods' identified growing numbers of children experiencing what he termed as 'Nature Deficit Disorders'. Five years on, Natural England's 'The People and Nature Survey' (2010) found that children themselves identified a positive correlation between their time outdoors and physical and mental health and wellbeing, with children from higher income families being more likely to access the outdoors.

Given this backdrop, at Little Brympton, we aim to connect with nature at every opportunity. Weather permitting, we spend the whole morning in the top field, building, constructing, digging and playing. Our open-ended afternoon spaces and resources are packed full of sustainable objects and materials and our planned activities are seasonal, using produce from the garden as a starting point, with the exception of a bit of hand-collected Dorset and Devon clay.

I wonder what it would take to bring our children into Nature Surplus. I am an idealist and like to believe that this could be possible. For now, here is a little person getting stuck in, immersed in the wonders of sticks and mud.