It's a lovely sunny day today, and it genuinely feels like spring is just around the corner now. As it was a bright morning, I decided to take a stroll along the beach to get some air and, hopefully, some inspiration for my next post. I was in luck, as a few minutes into my walk, I spotted a smooth white object partly buried in the sand, which I bent down, cleaned off and picked up for a closer look. I had a pretty good idea what it was, and picking it up confirmed that I had found a cuttlefish bone.
Immediately, I knew what I wanted to write about. If I was still teaching, I would have taken my find to school and asked the children if they knew what it was. Maybe if any of the families had a budgerigar, then one of the children would have known, but if not, I am sure it would have stimulated some research. Once it had been identified, it would probably have been left on the side for a bit before being thrown away. That would have been a shame, and no doubt I would have started reminiscing about my schooldays and my early days in teaching when the 'nature table' seemed to be an ever-present piece of classroom furniture.
That is a very roundabout way of getting to the subject of this post, which is that we should bring back the nature table into our primary classrooms. It used to be a given that each class would have an area dedicated to 'finds' that people, not just the teacher, had brought in to share, but its demise started when the national curriculum was introduced and as the pressure grew on schools to improve results. Plus, the risk assessment culture that took over schools would not have looked kindly at some of the things I remember being brought in and put on display in my younger days!
It seems to have morphed into the familiar 'show and tell' sessions that are the bane of most teachers' existences, but I bet that few teachers would complain if those were abolished and the nature table was reinstated. The same is true for most parents, too! More traditional classroom displays also evolved into 'working walls' to support development, but only in writing and maths, as they were deemed the most 'important' subjects. A library area still exists in most classes, thank goodness, but that's about it in terms of what one might have expected to see in a classroom two decades ago.
Well, I was one of those teachers who doubted whether the children looked at working walls, and I felt that the risks to the children were minimal, so there was always room for a nature table in my classroom. This was something that I tried to encourage when I became a headteacher, and I had some success in doing so. We regularly had frogspawn in school in the spring, and last year, we even took part in a project to reintroduce the eel into our local rivers, which involved having tanks full of elvers in two of our classrooms. Our reception class was, of course, brilliant at this kind of thing, as they always are, and most teachers tried their best, but I couldn't get them to totally commit to the idea.
They had some valid points. We were limited in space in our classes, and our published results were not great, so we really needed to focus much of our attention on that side of things. I get that; however, I continued to try my best to bring nature into our classrooms. If I found a frog in our school garden, it would get a tour of the school, and the same thing happened to a slow worm once, as well as a couple of deceased creatures that I felt the children would benefit from seeing, much to the displeasure of one of the teachers. Some parents and even grandparents found out that I was a fan of that kind of thing, and they joined in on occasions, too, which was lovely.
It never caught on in the way I hoped, though, and it fizzled out post-pandemic in my school. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion, but when I left teaching, I felt strongly that some of the more memorable aspects of primary education had been lost. Through my blogging and the manuscript I have written, I hope to help bring them back, starting with the nature table. So, here are 6 great reasons why every class in a primary school should have one:
1. It's better than show and tell. Rather than sharing the latest toy their parents bought for them, which is fraught with issues, they are sharing objects they have collected or photos of their adventures in nature., objects which will help their audience to focus, too.
2. It encourages families to go outside more. There will undoubtedly be some healthy competition between some of the parents, which will benefit the children in terms of their experiences. Children who have not really engaged with nature will end up doing so to find something for the nature table, and that might just be the start of some new adventures.
3. It can help provide great stimuli for other subject areas. When we had the elvers in our classes last year, the children used them for art, science, and writing, to name but three areas. As the seasons change, you can bring in items related to that time of year, and they can be used as a vehicle for exposing children to classic poetry and to support their own writing. I could go on, but you get the idea.
4. It encourages curiosity and independent learning. If you bring in a mystery object and then task the children with solving that mystery, they will love the responsibility and produce work of the highest standard.
5. If you include a 'famous scientists' aspect to your nature table, then you are broadening their horizons as to what opportunities might be out there for them when they are older. Who knows, you might inspire the next Mary Anning or Steve Backshall!
6. By having a nature table, you are developing parent links and showing them that you value what the children do with them out of school. It really does help engender a feeling of partnership, and most days, a parent or two will be dragged into class to look at something new that has appeared.
I could go on, but if you still haven't been convinced, speak to someone who attended primary school in the eighties and ask them about the nature table. I can guarantee they will remember it fondly, and when it comes down to it, fond memories of school can't be a bad thing, can they?
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