(EYLF) Learning environments

Learning environments include physical, temporal, social and intellectual elements. Welcoming, safe and inclusive indoor and outdoor learning environments reflect, respect, affirm the identities, and enrich the lives of children and families. Educators plan and provide both active and calming spaces, as well as times in the daily schedule for active and quiet play. They provide individual as well as group spaces that respond to children’s interests and capabilities. Environments that support learning are vibrant and flexible spaces that are responsive to the strengths, culture, languages, interests and capabilities of each child, and reflect aspects of the local community. Well planned environments cater for different learning capacities and learning styles and allow for reasonable adjustments where required. Educators also invite children and families to contribute their ideas, interests and questions to create unique and familiar environments. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, these contributions can assist in building an intercultural space where both Western and traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges are shared. 

Outdoor learning spaces are a feature of Australian learning environments. They offer a vast array of possibilities for physical activity and learning experiences not available indoors. Access to play spaces in natural environments may include plants, trees, edible gardens, open spaces, sand, rocks, mud, water and other elements from nature. These and other outdoor spaces invite open-ended play and interactions, physically active play and games, spontaneity, risk-taking, exploration, discovery and connection with nature. They foster an appreciation of the natural world and the interdependence between people, animals, plants, lands and waters providing opportunities for children to engage with all concepts of sustainability through environmental education. 

Educators where possible participate and offer opportunities for children to learn on Country and seek more information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander connections and relationships with Country. All children benefit from learning on Country and from Country. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, their spirituality is connected to Country, and the connection is strong. It is in their relationships and how they communicate with their ancestors, families, kinship systems and communities. It is in their connection to the land – the trees, waterholes and mountains. 

Indoor and outdoor environments support all aspects of children’s learning and invite conversations between children, educators, families and the broader community. They promote opportunities for sustained shared thinking and collaborative learning. Children should experience sustained, appropriate periods of time in both the outdoor and indoor environment for optimal learning to occur. Approved providers and educators are aware that the accessibility of resources and the way in which learning spaces are set up may enable some children and prevent others from participating. In this way approved providers and educators attend to all aspects of the environment to enable all children to participate, succeed in learning and develop positive feelings of self-worth. 

Materials enhance learning when they reflect what is natural and familiar, and introduce novelty to provoke interest and more complex and increasingly abstract thinking. For example, digital technologies and media can enable children to access global connections and resources and encourage new ways of thinking. Environments and resources can also highlight our responsibilities for a sustainable future and promote children’s understanding about their responsibility to care for the environment. They can foster hope, wonder and knowledge about the natural world, as well as thinking about social and economic sustainability. 

Educators can encourage children and families to contribute ideas, interests and questions to the learning environment. They can support engagement by allowing time for meaningful interactions, by providing a range of opportunities for individual and shared experiences, and by finding opportunities for children to actively participate and contribute to their local community.