Capturing impact: A Nature Park Guide

© RHS, Credit: RHS / Helen Yates

Circle time and short reflections

Conducting group discussions and short, single reflection point at the end of each activity. This can be conducted as a circle time, smaller group discussion, or your children and young people may prefer more individual reflection through the use of ‘exit tickets’ using the following sentence stems:  

• Today’s activity helped me think about… 
• Today’s activity helped me learn… 
• I have this question after today’s activity….. 
• Today’s activity made me wonder if……(wondering keys into deeper thinking and reduces the level of risk) 
• One thing I’ll remember from today’s activity is……. 
• Today I learned…..I know this because…… 

*A selection of these sentence stems can be printed on small ‘tickets’ if you want to capture written evidence of individuals or a group of children and young people 

**Use these as opportunities to celebrate small wins and incremental progress

Building a picture of the learning journey 

• Drawing together the impact after a sequence of activities and lessons 
• Pulling together a paragraph of writing from snippets written or drawn during the lessons 
• Mind mapping pro-forma filled in or extended each week as reflection activity and used to re-establish learning at the beginning of the next session 
• Mind mapping or drawing at beginning/middle/end of project 
• Biodiversity is……(e.g. 10 min to draw/note as many things as possible) 
• Using a KWHL template (What we KNOW, what we WANT to know, HOW we will find out and what we have LEARNED) - use the downloadable worksheet for learners to fill out  

© RHS, Credit: RHS / Helen Yates

Nature journalling

Learners can use separate sheets of paper or an exercise book to build a nature journal of observations and reflections. Alternatively, learners could create their own nature journal from scratch (try this tutorial video)! A journal can be a personal space to document thoughts, feelings and learnings, as well as nature observations, findings and creative outcomes. Nature journalling could be fit into a short session weekly, or learners could document one thing in their journals after each Nature Park activity. 

Here are just a few prompts that could help children and young people explore nature journalling: 

• Collecting or pressing found objects such as leaves  
• Drawing interesting observations – such as shapes, patterns, or colours 
• Creative writing responding to nature – a short story or poem 
• Photographs 
• Collages using found images or mixed media  
• A space for their own outcomes produced in Nature Park activities – e.g. Design a plant, Creative responses to a place, Write a poem 

The use of a floor book or a working wall to capture experiences (EYFS and primary): 

• Photographs (e.g. of grouping and sorting in hoops) 
• Drawings  
• Questions, ideas, reflections  

Big ideas/little ideas approach 

This approach supports learners to record thoughts that come to mind straight away and encourages more creative thought. The exercise provides evidence of developing understanding as sessions progress and enables fundamental misconceptions to be addressed as they arise. At the end of a series of sessions, learners re-visit their ‘big ideas’ and comment alongside them, offering further evidence of their developed understanding at the end of the learning focus.   

You can use the downloadable templates to help learners start using this approach. You could frame the exercise as big and little 'ideas' formulated during an activity or session, or big and little ‘questions’ raised.