RHET Scottish Borders were delighted to be invited to the NQT training session Outdoor Learning event in May.

Our session discussed how teachers could get involved with RHET, how we could support farm visits and class talks, and introduced participants to the range of online learning resources that we have available.

Our training session focused on STEAM biodiversity and exploring school grounds activities.

We ran two training workshops for about 20 teachers each, and covered a range of topics that would be simple to replicate within school grounds including:

• Soil texturing, using a key to identify different soil types
• Mud painting – this was very popular and some beautiful artwork was created
• Making seed bombs, and discussing pollinators
• Worm hunting, and exploring the maths that can be involved
• Creating ‘Wanted Posters’ for some of the bugs found in school grounds and
• A poo session making pretend poo to use in story telling and in an experiment to help farmers diagnose the roundworms in his flock of sheep.

Thankfully the weather was very kind, and we had great feedback from the teachers who commented that the activities demonstrated would all be very easy to replicate in their own school playgrounds.

You can find out what is on offer for the 24/25 term by visiting https://www.rhet.org.uk/teachers/career-long-professional-learning/