Taking a breather: How Amity’s natural surroundings inspire calm, focus and learning excellence

We often discuss the importance of school buildings and their design in how they affect students’ learning. From the layout of classes to the warmth of common areas, intention and care are the operating words in how we approach making sure we offer spaces which emphasize the well-being of children.

One overlooked factor in education is the impact of school exteriors on children's learning. Over the past decade, research has consistently shown that well-designed outdoor environments play a vital role in boosting students’ overall health, focus, and academic performance.

Most city schools face the challenge of providing mindful outdoor spaces for their students, having to navigate limited space and many security concerns. Amity Amsterdam has the unique benefit of not being like most city schools; the monumental building of our school is located on a beautifully lush, private island.

At our school, stewardship of the surrounding forest is more than a value: it’s a shared commitment. We actively uphold this whole-school principle by organizing regular cleanup days, inviting students to take part in caring for our green spaces and treating them with respect.  Taking this commitment even further, Amity’s student-led Sustainability Group successfully campaigned to ban single-use plastic cups at the coffee machine in the school’s reception, a proud step towards reducing waste and protecting our environment.

Amity’s commitment to using nature for its students

Since the school’s inception, we have utilised the forest around our school to offer a standout experience to our Early Year students; Forest School allows us to immerse children in our natural surroundings, fostering not only discovery and curiosity, but also benefiting their health. The University of Helsinki found that children who play in forest soil as opposed to other materials such as sand have bolstered immune responses and significantly better gut health.

Bringing Early Year students out into the forest between other indoor activities also allows them to refresh their capacity for mental focus: a walk in the forest gives them moments to calm down and reduce their tiredness and stress. Helping young children manage their delicate emotional balance allows them to learn and grow to their full potential.

The forest and surrounding gardens provide a refreshing home to all sorts of events, from picnics with the many families at the school, to whole school end of year ceremonies for students. Our talented Senior Drama Department have even brought A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Alice in Wonderland to life in a series of magical outdoor performances. Using the Forest School area as their stage, the students impressed everyone with their energy, talent, and imagination within the stunning natural backdrop.

Widening the lens: benefits of nature for everyone

Beyond Forest School and outdoor activities, having such natural beauty around the school has benefits for students of all ages. The sensory experience of the surrounding forest is bountiful in its positivity:

 

• Bettered mental health: Students’ proximity to nature during their commutes and time at school was found to correlate with higher mental health by researchers in Barcelona.
• Heightened focus: These same researchers observed that nature engages different neural pathways which are not used when processing complicated information. Being able to look outside at nature from the classroom window increases students’ capacity to learn and retain difficult content.
• Increased academic performance: In another study by the University of Michigan, students who were surrounded by forest had significantly higher scores and graduation rates.
• Higher interest: The change of seasons, which brings different colours, creates varied landscapes for students; a review by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, found that natural diversity in surroundings increases attention span.

 

The natural benefits of Amity’s environment help our students achieve excellence by freeing their mental space; with this clarity, from Early Years all the way up to Diploma level, they can focus on exploring their full potential and bringing their ambitions to fruition.

Further Reading:

Have a listen to the BBC podcast that inspired this piece: BBC Audio | What's Up Docs? | Is nature good for you?

“Biodiversity intervention enhances immune regulation and health-associated commensal microbiota among daycare children” – Science

“Green spaces and cognitive development in primary schoolchildren” – PNAS

“Student performance and high school landscapes: Examining the links” – Elsevier

“Nature in the indoor and outdoor study environment and secondary and tertiary education students’ well-being […]” – Elsevier