My guest today is Suzanne Welch, Education Partnership Manager at the RSPB, the UK’s largest nature conservation charity with over a million members, and in this episode she explores what it would mean to make nature a right in education and why it’s time to rethink the purpose.

Suzanne has spent decades in outdoor learning - from taking inner-city children to the Thames foreshore, where subjects like science, history and geography came alive, to now convening national partnerships and influencing education policy. Her work is driven by a vision that every child should have access to high-quality learning in, with and for nature.

In this episode Suzanne Welch...

• Challenges the outdated knowledge-based model and invites a shift toward enquiry and relational learning.
• Reflects on her early work taking inner-city children to the River Thames and witnessing their transformation outdoors.
• Emphasises joy, curiosity and presence as the foundations of meaningful learning.
• Highlights how outdoor experiences naturally connect subjects like science, history, art and geography.
• Argues that learning shouldn’t be siloed because our minds don’t operate in compartments.
• Points to the early years sector as an example of where outdoor and child-led learning already works well.
• Questions about why these principles fade as children move through the education system.
• Explains how assessment and measurement culture have narrowed what counts as learning.
• Calls for systemic rather than incremental change and a national conversation about the true purpose of education.
• Advocates for a statutory right for every child to learn in with and for nature.
• Notes that equitable access currently depends on postcode school leadership and teacher enthusiasm.
• Ends with a simple invitation start with one outdoor lesson listen to young people and let hope lead change.

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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