By Simone Potter, founder of Bush Magic Adventure Therapy
Why is 'bush school' and outdoor learning gaining in popularity? What makes for a successful bush school program? How does increased nature connectedness impact children with special needs?
All these questions and more are things I ponder every day as the owner of Bush Magic Adventure Therapy. I have worked as a teacher and a school counsellor for over 25 years and my personal experience in these roles has led me to clearly see that traditional schooling does not work well for all children. Many children will learn more effectively and with less stress on the child and their family by having a more hands on and generalised opportunity to learn skills and knowledge that is relevant to their situation at the time.
By exposing children to different activities and building strong rapport with the adults around them, they can be guided by their interests and will eventually learn everything they need to know and they will also grow to love the learning process, becoming life-long learners as well.
Our bush school has been running for three years and, in that time, every day we have seen countless kids positively impacted by our programs. The feedback we get from parents and kids keeps us highly motivated and satisfied with the work that we do and to keep impacting the lives of more and more children.
But we are aware that just because we know the impacts, it doesn’t mean that our work or the impact of nature connectedness on children will be recognised by others, including the people who make important policy decisions.
It was for this reason that we were excited last year to begin work with researchers from La Trobe University who were keen to undertake qualitative research into the impact of our programs and of nature connectedness in general on the wellbeing of children.
Research about bush schools and preschools across the world has shown that kids who attend, experience more autonomy and self-efficacy than they would in traditional schools. This empowerment helps kids to physically and emotionally challenge themselves by connecting with nature, developing problem-solving skills, managing their emotions and building resilience.
Throughout 2024, psychology lecturer and researcher Rachel Yerbury and psychology honours student Matthew Crampton undertook a survey entitled “Children Contact and Connectedness to Nature". Their aim was to gain more insight and data into what is going on when kids attend our programs, get out into nature, and have control of the activities they do, the resources they use and how they use them, as well as making connections with teachers, with each other, with themselves, and with the natural environment.
The initial results are positive, backing up the anecdotal observations from parents and teachers at Bush Magic Adventure Therapy.
Below is a brief summary of the results from the researchers:
“Overall, the survey results indicated that nature contact influences resilience, well-being, and emotional regulation. Responses also showed that connectedness to nature also influences resilience. Specifically, parent-participants revealed that their children enjoyed being in nature and preferred natural environments over other environments. Responses highlighted the importance of children protecting nature and that nature could provide children with perspective and meaning.”
A parting comment by the researchers in their summary had us feeling extremely positive about our programs, but also a little sad that our bush school is the exception rather than the rule and only available to parents who can afford to pay or to children with NDIS funding:
“Bush Magic was considered to be preferable over traditional school for the children of participants.”
We see it as an important part of our role as bush school advocates to continue talking about the positive impacts and benefits of this form of schooling. We hope that eventually more children in the Illawarra will have the opportunity to experience the benefits of our unique program, which offers a deep immersion in nature, empowerment to learn self-relevant skills and confidence to interact and cooperate with others.
For more information about Bush Magic Adventure Therapy, go to www.bushmagictherapy.com.au or contact Simone at hello@bushmagictherapy.com.au or 0428 909 895