Twenty minutes of climbing during which the children will have imitated buds by curling up on themselves or crumpled dry leaves to mark the end of winter. “Look at the trees, they offer you little coat racks,” advises the teacher upon arriving at the edge of the forest bordered by lavender fields, while a few children empty their water bottles to “make the trees drink.” Then it’s time to regroup, everyone sits in silence, before going in search of images of birds previously hung on the branches of the trees and identifying their names on cards distributed to the children.
A developing practice
Flore Aumage, 45, launched into the adventure five years ago. Aware of being “a little too academic”, the teacher wanted to “let go”. “I wanted to put myself in difficulty and offer my students the opportunity to learn differently, without the institutional tools that we have in classes.”
In France, around 4,500 classes, mainly in primary school, are experimenting with the classroom outside – regular or occasional outings outside the classroom, near the school, 80% of which started after Covid, according to Benjamin Gentils, director of the Fabrique des communes pedagogiques, an association which encourages teachers to venture outside the walls. “Encouraged by the ministry, this innovative educational practice has been developing mainly since the health crisis of 2020, it is therefore very recent and there is currently no exhaustive inventory,” specifies the Ministry of Education.
The “outdoor classroom” takes place in the great outdoors, in rural or urban areas, from nursery to high school and “can concern all school disciplines”, describes the ministry.
French children spend ten times less time outside than thirty years ago and nearly 40% of children aged 3 to 10 never play outside during the week, underlined a collective of elected officials and education professionals in an article published in the newspaper “Le Monde” in May 2025. In an attempt to to remedy what they describe as a “significant delay” in France compared to “many European countries (United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland)”, a transpartisan group of parliamentarians tabled a bill in June 2025 to include this initiative in the education code.
Towards legislative recognition
“We want to recognize this educational approach so that it is no longer taken for a fad,” insists Graziella Melchior, deputy (presidential majority) from Finistère and co-author of the bill with her colleagues, the ecologist, Jérémie Iordanoff (Isère), and socialist, Florence Hérouin-Léautey (Seine-Maritime). For Ms. Melchior, “on the contrary, we must realize all the benefits that it brings to the child to disconnect them from screens and reconnect them to nature.” It also provides for the establishment of “training modules” for teachers.
The text aims to “include regular access to the outdoors and in contact with nature among the objectives” of the school and “specifies that all lessons can be provided outside.” Besides, the children love this weekly meeting. “There is air blowing whereas in the school, it is not blowing,” comments Nolwen, 6 years old. “We can plant things, save insects and build a cabin,” rejoices Louis, 6 years old.
