Continuing Professional Development
We are here to develop and empower outdoor play and learning practitioners to incorporate more outdoor play and learning into every day.
Designed by our passionate and experienced team, our practical skills training sessions include outdoor skills, loose parts, and open-ended play. Practitioners will develop their knowledge and come away with innovative outdoor play concepts to build into their practice with confidence.
We also have practical tips, guides, and toolkits for practitioners to explore on our resources page.
We provide CPD inputs for both individuals and teams. If you would like to discuss arranging CPD for your setting or organisation we can discuss how to tailor input to your specific needs.
See below for a list of some of our CPD options. If you are looking for a topic that isn’t listed, please contact us at Thrive@inspiringscotland.org.uk
“We are so grateful to Thrive Outdoors for their unending support. The amount of training and CPD opportunities you provided was excellent.”
“Thrive Outdoors offers valuable training opportunities for our team to develop their skills as well as providing platforms for similar charities and services to share their knowledge to learn from one another "
Outdoor Play, the Climate and Us
How should children’s services be responding to the climate and nature emergency? This session focusses on practical changes we can make and our contribution to collective action.
Gender Equity Outdoors
How gendered are children’s outdoor experiences and is this an area of practice you would like to understand more and influence? This session is designed to help services and practitioners gain confidence working with some knotty gender issues!
Place-based Walkshop
Adopting a place-based approach to all aspects of provision can enhance and deepen the quality of children’s experience and learning. This session provides tangible steps to help connect with the plants, animals and people, past and present, with whom you share your space.
Active and Playful Numeracy and Maths Outdoors
Through games and investigation outdoors, we show how playing and learning outdoors can embed a love of learning in numeracy and maths. Working in the real world we have the opportunity to play with concepts, challenge our understanding and apply skills in new contexts
Finding Nature in a Concrete Jungle
The natural world is all around us no matter where our setting might be. Learning how to look at our spaces and take notice of the living things that we share spaces with can lead to enquiry and to action.
Small Loose Parts (or ‘Loose Parts for the Fearful’)
Small, natural materials (sticks, stones, leaves, shells and more) and scrap materials can help us explore creativity, encourage curiosity and develop collaboration skills. We suggest ways to create your own store of low cost, multi-purpose loose parts materials and how can be used to support learning and play outdoors.
Play and Learning Outdoors Refreshing Your Practice – a whole setting approach
This session will help you and your team to reflect on existing practice to ensure rich play and learning experiences for all. Make the most of the strengths of your team and identify gaps and opportunities in both spaces and expertise.
To arrange a training session, get in touch with us at Thrive@inspiringscotland.org.uk.