Jane Acton nature workshops

If you go down to the woods today....: Building confidence and changing behaviour in a

Cornish woodland

Aim 1 ‘to assess and investigate the impact of nature workshops on children’s self esteem, confidence and emotional literacy’

Aim 2 ‘to explore how best to evaluate this practice in future’

Aim 3 ‘to reflect on practice and determine how nature workshops can be developed further for children’

Measure

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) Generally measures symptoms      

Informant

Parents and teachers, completed before the sessions started and at the end of all the sessions.  

Description

20 items categorized into 4 subscales: emotional difficulties, behavioural difficulties, hyperactivity and peer problems. Informants indicate how much they agree with a statement. Total symptom and subscale scores calculated   

Measures used to evaluate the impact on child well being

SDQ ImpactMeasures adaptation

Parents and Teachers (as above)

7 items that ask informants to rate the extent to which symptoms distress them and impact on home life, friendships, classroom learning and leisure activities. Impact score calculated

SDQ Pro-socialMeasures resilience 

Parents and teachers (as above)

5 items that measure kind and helpful behaviour. Informants rate how much they agree with a statement. Pro-social sub scale calculated

Emotional Literacy Checklists (ELC)Measures resilience

Parents, teachers and children

25 (child and parent) or 20 (teacher) item categorized into 5 subscales: empathy, motivation, self-awareness, self-regulation and social skills. Informants are asked to indicate how much they agree with a statement. Overall emotional literacy and sub scales are calculated.

Mood rating scale The child is offered 4 different ‘faces’ to tick, decorate or draw in a way that best suits how they feel at the beginning of each session: JLKm

Satisfaction rating The child is offered a scale (a 10cm line) from J to L on which to indicate their satisfaction with 4 parameters: were they listened to? how important was what they did?, how much they liked what they did? and how much they would like to do differently next week?

Name of child DateWhat worked well for child?What didn’t work well for the child?What were the child’s strengths?What were the child’s difficulties?What might I need to check up on/do more of

in the next session?Other issues;

Child review at end of each session

Aim 1 ‘to assess and investigate the impact of nature workshops on children’s self esteem, confidence and emotional literacy’

C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6

Were you listened

to?

10 10 10 9 10 10

How important to

you was what we

did in this

session?

10 9 10 10 10 10

How much did

you like the

session?

10 10 10 10 10 10

Overall how much

would like to do

more of the

same?

9 9 10 10 10 10

Childs satisfaction with the sessions

CI C2 C3 C4 C5 C60

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

BeforeAfter

Children’s Emotional Literacy Checklist Scores

CI C2 C3 C4 C5 C60

5

10

15

20

25

30

BeforeAfter

Parents Overall SDQ Score

Aim 2 ‘to explore how best to evaluate this practice in future’

We managed to receive complete sets of data on each child from their parents, teachers and the children themselves.

In future we would like to do some qualitative research which includes asking children open ended questions. It would be good to find a more tangible way of recording the children’s satisfaction with the sessions than simply marks out of 10. Perhaps drawings, sound or video recordings could be made by the children.

We found the SDQ system quite time consuming compared with the ELC. Also the ELC was the most relevant in helping us to measure how well the sessions built resilience in the children.

Aim 3 ‘to reflect on practice and determine how nature workshops can be developed further for children’

Session reviewsWeekly reviewsMixed groupsCollaborationsFeedback reportsCommon Assessment Framework

We have successfully assessed and investigated the impact of nature workshops and have measured improvements in self esteem, confidence and emotional literacy according to the children, parents and teachers. Without a control group we cannot conclude this is solely due to these sessions.

The sessions were well attended, the children enjoyed what they did and would all like to do more.

The quantitative measures we used generally worked well and qualitative methods would also be good in future.

Conclusions

Time spent in child focussed sessions prepared specifically to suit their learning styles clearly supports improved self esteem and emotional literacy.

The model outlined here worked well. It might be used with families in the future. Feedback to parents and teachers on individual children might be useful in future where assessments are required.

More research on a larger scale, conducted by an independent body, would allow us to measure the impact of nature workshops as a potential tool for improving well being and learning over time.

We would also recommend research on the impacts of nature workshops where perhaps some children have much more than 22 hours on a regular weekly basis.

Recommendations