Wandana Primary School

Site category: 2

Wandana Primary School is in Gilles Plains with 148 students including 27% Aboriginal enrolments, 30% of students living with a disability and 41% speaking English as a second or additional language. Our Thriving Learners project engaged 31 reception and year 1 students over 9 weeks. Staff at Wandana Primary School sought to explore all four Areas of Impact by activating an outdoor learning space to build children’s connection to place, and to nature. Staff looked to build their knowledge and confidence for outdoor learning and create more diverse play opportunities for all learners. We observed children’s play and conducted pre-program assessments to collect information about the children’s interests and experiences to inform our sessions, with the assessments also serving to track change post-program. Assessments included The Biophilia Inteview (Rice & Torquati, 2013) used to measure young children’s connection to nature and the Interpretation of Drawings (Salazar et al., 2020) framework used to understand children’s attitudes towards and relationships with nature. Other assessments included The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997) and a Teacher Confidence Survey created by Nature Play SA.