During the early 20th century, open air schools were far from uncommon. Waldeschule (that translates as “forest school”), built near Berlin in 1904 is widely acknowledged as being the first. By 1907 there was an outdoor school in London with another being built the following year. By 1937 there were 96 open-air schools in Great Britain as they were seen as one of the ways of preventing the widespread rise of tuberculosis that occurred in the period leading up to the Second World War. However, they started to fall out of favour by the 1970’s in part due to the vagaries of the British weather. But as the walkers’ guidebook author Alfred Wainright said:

In a Covid-aware society, it’s likely that outdoor learning could well come back into vogue for all the same reasons as it was in the 1920’s. According to The Institute of Outdoor Learning, “taking the curriculum outside can improve attainment, increase engagement, and develop a wide range of skills including problem solving, communication and resilience. Outdoor learning also provides endless opportunities for experiential, contextual and applied education.”  Indeed, a project part-funded by the UK Government found, in 2016, that children learning outdoors were “happier, healthier and more motivated to learn” when they “turned the outdoors into a classroom and helped schools transform ways of teaching” prompting the then Environment Minister, Rory Stewart to comment: