Early Years Outdoor Play Training
Early Years Outdoor Play Training helps practitioners understand how to create outdoor environments that support genuine play, independence, movement, communication and learning without constantly setting up elaborate adult-led activities.
At The Muddy Puddle Teacher, we believe strong Early Years outdoor provision should be:
- simple
- sustainable
- open-ended
- child-led
- active
- purposeful
- manageable for staff
- rooted in the EYFS
You do not need an expensive playground or lots of money.
You do not need a forest.
And you do not need to completely change your outdoor environment every week.
Instead, practitioners need to understand how children use space, how play develops and how adults can extend learning without taking over.
At MPT, we believe that the outdoors, unlike the indoor space, is the only environment where you can nurture Pure Play and we help you achieve that through free, sustainable, and upcycled loose parts play.
That is what our Early Years Outdoor Play Training Programme is designed to teach.
If you are completely new to taking learning outside, maybe start with our Beginner’s Guide to Early Years Outdoors and Early Years Outdoor Play, then return here for everything you need to develop your outdoor loose parts play.
Why Outstanding Outdoor Play Should Cost Nothing
At The Muddy Puddle Teacher®, we believe loose parts play belongs outdoors—and that, sometimes, loose parts are all an outdoor space truly needs to bring back pure play.
Pure play is the kind of play children initiate, shape and enjoy for themselves, without relying on adult-designed toy sets or pre-planned tuff trays.
Think about how many toys and resources children use that they are told how to use – without anyone actually saying anything to them. Sometimes by their colour, shape or design. Have you ever seen a child play with a car any other way than it being a car?
Outdoors, teamed with loose parts offer children a BIG blank canvas: they can move, combine, build and transform the materials in any way they choose. Every child can follow their own ideas, use their imagination, make loud noises, explore big movements and create something entirely their own. That is the power of pure play.
Outdoor loose parts play invite early years children to think rather than simply follow instructions. Just like you played as kids.
Training Created by Sarah Seaman and Delivered by Qualified Teachers
Sarah Seaman is a qualified teacher, educational consultant, author and founder of The Muddy Puddle Teacher®. With a BSc, PGCE and MA, Sarah combines professional expertise with real classroom experience, helping schools and nurseries make outdoor learning practical, purposeful and achievable. Her work has supported educators across Early Years, primary education and SEND settings to build confidence and create richer learning experiences outside.
Sarah created The Muddy Puddle Teacher® approach after recognising that many teachers wanted to use outdoor learning but felt unsure about curriculum coverage, behaviour, resources, safety and planning. Her training removes those barriers by showing staff how to take the subjects they already teach and deliver them outdoors using simple, sustainable methods involving bamboo, rope, chalk, hoops and natural materials.
Training is delivered by qualified teachers with current or recent classroom experience. This means your trainer understands the everyday realities of managing pupils, meeting curriculum expectations, supporting SEND, working with limited budgets and making the most of the outdoor space available.
Every trainer follows The Muddy Puddle Teacher® approach, using the same trusted methods, sustainable toolkit and practical activities. Whether your session is delivered by Sarah or another member of the training team, staff receive consistent, high-quality guidance from an experienced educator who understands how outdoor learning works in real settings.
Why We Believe Pure Play Belongs Outdoors
At MPT, we believe the outdoor environment offers something that the indoor environment often cannot.
Inside, children are surrounded by stimulus.
There are books, toys, role-play resources, labelled areas, furniture, adult-selected materials and familiar objects.
And that is okay.
The indoor environment has a purpose.
It can offer rich language, structured resources, specific interests and carefully chosen stimulus.
But if we then recreate exactly the same kind of environment outside, we lose one of the greatest strengths of outdoor learning.
The outdoors can be the blank canvas.
It can be the place where there is less adult stimulus, less commercial stimulus, less instruction and more space for the child to decide what something becomes.
That means the indoor and outdoor environments offer children two genuinely different ways to learn and play.
Indoors may offer stimulus.
Outdoors can offer possibility.
Find a Trained Muddy Puddle School & Nursery Near You
See Our Muddy Puddle Teacher® Trained Schools
We are proud to have trained schools, early years settings and educators across the UK and Europe using The Muddy Puddle Teacher® approach. Explore the map to see just some of the schools and settings who are bringing outdoor learning, play and inclusive teaching to life with us.
From small nurseries to large primary schools, our training helps educators use the outdoors to support curriculum learning, wellbeing, SEND, behaviour, creativity and confidence — whatever the weather.
Why Outdoor Provision Needs to Be Purposefully Different
A strong outdoor environment should not simply be an indoor classroom moved outside.
At The Muddy Puddle Teacher, we encourage settings to deliberately keep outdoor provision stripped back.
We use loose, free, natural and upcycled resources.
We do not promote buying lots of outdoor toys, branded play equipment or expensive themed resources.
We believe children need access to materials such as wood, crates, cardboard, ropes, fabric, sticks, stones, old pots, pans, containers and other reusable loose parts.
These resources do not tell children what to do.
They invite children to imagine.
A plank may become a bridge, a road, a bed, a stage, a ramp, a wall or part of a den.
A cardboard box may become a hospital, a car, a house, a spaceship or something with no adult-recognisable purpose at all.
That is where imagination begins.
For more ideas head to this blog post: 100 Outoor Loose Parts Play Ideas and for hundreds of ideas head to the Early Years Outdor Hub.
Trustpilot Reviews 5 Stars 
‘We had an in person training provided by Sarah and it was incredible!’ – Julie , Headteacher , Happy Days Nursery
‘What a truly inspiring way to start our term!
The PD day training with The Muddy Puddle Teacher was fantastic and the staff are excited to start their outdoor learning journey with the children. We are day two in to term and I have seen four outdoor lessons already!
Thank you from all of us at Churchside Federation.’ Sarah Godbold, Executive Headteacher
What Is Outdoor Play Training Really About?
Outdoor play training is not simply about sending children outside and hoping good play happens.
High-quality outdoor play requires knowledgeable practitioners.
Adults need to understand how to create the right environment, how to introduce enough stimulus without taking over, how to recognise when children need support, how to weave learning into play and, just as importantly, when to step away.
That balance is difficult.
Too much adult involvement and the play becomes adult-led.
Too little adult involvement and some children may struggle to enter, sustain or extend the play.
Our training focuses heavily on helping practitioners understand when to step in and when to dip out.
That is one of the most important skills in Early Years outdoor practice.
Our Early Years Outdoor Play Training Has Three Main Strands
Our approach brings together outdoor provision, outdoor play and focused teaching outdoors.
These are connected, but they are not the same thing.
1. Outdoor Provision
2. Outdoor Play
3. Outdoor Focused Teaching
Booking Outdoor Learning Training for EYFS
Step One
Chat with us. We tailor every booking to the needs of your staff, the children, your community and any school improvement plans you have in place. Outdoor play is the platform, but what we want to know is why. Is it to improve oracy, support SEND learners or improve physicality? We can then create a bespoke plan and offer you a range of budget-friendly options to help you achieve them. Book a chat now to discuss options – no booking needs to be made.
Step Two
Want to proceed? We will then select a teacher-consultant for your school who will be your trainer and go-to teacher. We will then work out dates together. Dates are limited so please do contact us as soon as you are happy to proceed.
Step Three
We come to your setting and train you!
Step Four
Receive one year of post-training care from your consultant and a year’s susbcription to our site.
1. Your Outdoor Provision-Creating Blank Canvas
The first part of our training focuses on the outdoor environment itself.
We help settings look carefully at what is currently outside and ask:
Does this resource encourage imagination, or does it already tell the child what to do?
We help practitioners create a simpler, more sustainable outdoor setup using loose, free and upcycled resources.
The aim is not to fill every corner.
The aim is to create enough opportunity.
We explore how to organise areas for large loose parts, mud kitchens, natural materials, bikes, sand, water, movement, making, building and quieter play, while keeping the overall environment stripped back and manageable.
We also focus on what you actually need.
Not what a catalogue tells you to buy.
Not what looks impressive on social media.
What children genuinely need to play.
Our approach is deliberately low-cost and sustainable.
We believe the richest outdoor provision often comes from fewer resources used in more imaginative ways.
Why We Do Not Promote Bought Outdoor Play Resources
Commercial toys often arrive with a story already attached.
A toy kitchen tells the child it is a kitchen.
A plastic pirate ship tells the child it is a pirate ship.
A branded house tells the child who lives there and what type of play is expected.
Loose parts do the opposite.
A crate can be anything.
A stick can be anything.
A piece of bark can be anything.
That is why we focus on free, found, reclaimed, natural and upcycled resources.
The less the resource dictates, the more the child has to imagine.
Browse Online Outdoor Play Coures
Teaching English Outdoors the Masterclass
Bring English to life through active, purposeful outdoor learning A practical staff meeting, CPD or training presentation for EYFS, KS1 and KS2. Teaching English outdoors does not mean taking books, worksheets and clipboards outside. It means giving children something...
Maths EYFS Outdoors
What Is Maths EYFS Outdoors? Maths EYFS Outdoors is about helping young children develop mathematical understanding through movement, play, exploration and real-life experiences in the outdoor environment. Outdoor maths does not need to mean carrying worksheets...
Accredited Outdoor Phonics Training
2. Outdoor Play- Supporting Pure Play Without Taking Out
The second strand focuses on the play itself.
We help practitioners understand how to promote and protect pure play.
That means creating invitations without creating outcomes.
It means learning how to add something to the environment without deciding what children must do with it.
It means recognising when a play idea could be extended, changed or deepened.
For example, children may be building with crates and planks.
The practitioner could simply observe.
Later, if the play begins to stall, they might introduce one additional resource, perhaps a piece of fabric, a tube or a length of rope.
Suddenly the play may move in a completely different direction.
The adult has influenced the environment without controlling the outcome.
That is a very different skill from setting up an activity.
How Practitioners Weave Learning Into Play
Outdoor play is not separate from learning.
Children naturally encounter maths, language, literacy, physical development, social development, creativity and Understanding the World while they play.
The practitioner needs to notice those opportunities.
A child building a den may be exploring measure, shape, balance, negotiation and communication.
A child transporting mud in a bucket may be exploring weight, capacity, physical strength and imaginative play.
A child creating a pretend doctor’s surgery from bark, sticks and crates may be developing language, storytelling, empathy, social understanding and early writing.
Our training helps practitioners learn how to recognise these moments and gently extend them.
That might mean introducing vocabulary, offering a new material, making a comment, modelling a skill or asking one carefully chosen question.
Then stepping back again.
Knowing When to Step In
Practitioners often feel they must constantly demonstrate learning.
That can lead to too much talking, too many questions and too much adult direction.
Sometimes the most powerful thing an adult can do is watch.
If children are deeply engaged, solving problems, negotiating and extending an idea themselves, there may be no need to intervene.
The adult role becomes:
observe, notice, protect the play, support when needed, then leave space again.
Our training helps staff become confident enough to do that.
Knowing When to Step Out
This is just as important.
If adults remain involved for too long, children may begin to look to the adult for the next idea.
The play stops belonging to the child.
We help practitioners recognise the moment when their contribution has done enough.
The aim is to leave children thinking:
“What shall we do next?”
not:
“What does the adult want us to do next?”
3. Focused Teaching Outdoors
The third strand is focused teaching outdoors.
Outdoor play does not mean all learning has to be completely child-led.
There is still an important place for intentional teaching.
We help practitioners take curriculum objectives outside and teach them in ways that use the environment, movement and practical experience.
For example, a maths objective may be introduced through measuring, collecting, sorting or movement.
A literacy objective may be taught through storytelling, signs, maps, messages or environmental print.
An Understanding the World objective may begin with observing weather, plants, animals or materials.
The focused teaching gives children knowledge, vocabulary and experiences.
Then, very often, those ideas feed back into their play.
That is where the three strands connect.
Teach It, Then Let It Travel Into Play
One of the most powerful parts of the MPT approach is the relationship between focused teaching and child-led play.
An adult may teach children about bridges.
Later, children use planks to create their own bridge in play.
An adult may introduce vocabulary around doctors and medicine.
Later, a child picks up a piece of bark and decides it is medicine.
An adult may teach counting or measuring.
Later, children use those ideas while building, transporting or sharing resources.
The teaching does not replace the play.
It feeds it.
Then the child takes ownership.
Outdoor Play Is Not “Just Play”
The phrase “just playing” massively underestimates what children are doing.
During high-quality outdoor play, children may be developing:
communication, negotiation, imagination, physical strength, coordination, resilience, problem solving, mathematical thinking, early literacy, creativity, social understanding, independence, decision making and self-regulation.
All at the same time.
A child building a shelter from crates and fabric may be making decisions about size, stability, position, teamwork, roles, language and story.
That is not “just play”.
That is complex learning.
Why Pure Play Matters
Pure play gives children something increasingly rare.
Ownership.
The child decides what the object means.
The child creates the narrative.
The child changes the rules.
The child decides when the play ends.
That gives children opportunities to think independently rather than constantly responding to adult-created stimulus.
At MPT, we believe this kind of play deserves protecting.
And we believe the outdoors is the best place to protect it.
The Indoor and Outdoor Environments Should Be Different
We are not saying indoor provision is wrong.
Far from it.
Indoor environments naturally contain more stimulus.
That can be incredibly useful.
The problem comes when we duplicate that stimulus outdoors.
If indoors and outdoors both contain the same type of toys, the same adult-created role play, the same fixed-purpose resources and the same learning setup, then the child is not gaining a genuinely different experience.
We want the environments to complement one another.
Indoors can offer stimulus, specific resources, books, tools and structured opportunities.
Outdoors can offer space, movement, nature, scale and a blank canvas.
Together, they create a richer Early Years experience.
What Practitioners Learn on Our Training
Our training helps practitioners understand the philosophy behind pure play, simplify outdoor provision, remove unnecessary resources, select loose and upcycled materials, create a year-round outdoor environment, understand the role of the adult, extend play without taking over, weave curriculum learning into child-led experiences, introduce focused teaching outdoors, observe more effectively, support SEND, reduce workload and create a more sustainable approach to outdoor learning.
The goal is confidence.
We want practitioners to understand why they are doing something, not simply copy an activity.
A Sustainable Approach to Outdoor Provision
One of the biggest advantages of our approach is that it reduces pressure on staff.
You do not need to redesign the outdoors every Monday morning.
You do not need a new themed tuff tray every week.
You do not need to purchase a resource for every objective.
Keep the core environment.
Change the experience.
Add a different tool, introduce a different question, bring in a new story, teach something new, then watch how children use those ideas.
The environment remains manageable.
The play remains fresh.
What Could a Full Training Day Include?
A full day gives teams time to explore the philosophy behind pure play, review their current outdoor provision, understand loose parts and sustainable resources, explore adult interaction, practise extending play, examine curriculum opportunities outdoors and create an action plan for their own setting.
The aim is to leave with a clear approach, not simply a list of activities.
What Could a 3-Hour Workshop Include?
A shorter workshop can focus on the essentials.
What is pure play, why should outdoors be different, what should your provision include, what should you remove, how should adults interact and how can you begin taking focused learning outdoors?
This can be a strong starting point for a team that wants to begin changing practice quickly.
Early Years Outdoor Play Training FAQs
What is pure play?
Pure play is child-created play that begins without a predetermined adult or commercial stimulus. Children decide what resources represent, how the play develops and what the outcome becomes.
Why does MPT believe pure play belongs outdoors?
We believe outdoor environments can provide a more open, less cluttered and less prescribed space than indoor environments, allowing children greater freedom to create meaning from loose resources.
Does MPT recommend outdoor toys?
Our approach focuses on loose, free, natural, reclaimed and upcycled resources rather than bought fixed-purpose outdoor toys.
What is outdoor provision training?
Outdoor provision training helps practitioners understand how to organise the outdoor environment, what resources to offer, how to keep the environment sustainable and how to make outdoor experiences different from indoor provision.
What is outdoor play training?
Outdoor play training focuses on how children play, how adults support that play, when to intervene, when to step back and how learning can be woven naturally into child-led experiences.
What is focused teaching outdoors?
Focused teaching outdoors means intentionally teaching a curriculum objective using the outdoor environment, movement, nature or practical experiences, then allowing that learning to feed into children’s wider play where appropriate.
Is outdoor play “just play”?
No. Rich outdoor play can simultaneously develop communication, PSED, Physical Development, Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.
Do you offer INSET training?
Yes. The training can be delivered as full training days, INSET days, half-day sessions or 3-hour workshops depending on the needs of the setting.
Is the training suitable for Reception?
Yes. Reception teams can use the approach to protect child-led play while also introducing more focused curriculum teaching outdoors.
Is the training suitable for nurseries?
Yes. The approach is particularly relevant to nurseries because of its emphasis on play, communication, movement, loose parts, independence and developmentally appropriate provision.
Explore Early Years Outdoor Play Training
If you want to create an outdoor environment that gives children something genuinely different from indoors, our training will help you develop a simple, sustainable and intentional approach built around pure play.
Learn how to create the blank canvas.
Learn how to protect children’s imagination.
Learn how to use loose, free and upcycled resources.
Learn how to weave learning into play.
Learn when to step in.
And learn when to step away.
Explore The Muddy Puddle Teacher Early Years Outdoor Play Training.