Special Collections & Archives: Snapshots from the Archives

Snapshot from the Archives: Dirty teaching! Froebel, Southlands, Whitelands and the Great Outdoors

For our July snapshot, we celebrate the summer with a look back at the pioneering work of Froebel, Southlands and Whitelands Colleges to promote a love of nature and the benefits of Great Outdoors.

Outdoor teaching and learning, both for children and for students of their education, has always been integral to Froebelian teaching methods. And at Southlands College in the 1930s, staff and students were involved in the creation of open-air schools for inner city children believed to be at risk of developing tuberculosis.

Children learning and playing outdoors at a Froebel kindergarten (left) and at a Southlands open air school (right). 

Kornelia Cepok, Froebel Archivist, writes:

Froebel is most famous for his invention of the Kindergarten (“children’s garden”) as a crucial element of early childhood learning, in keeping with these key Froebelian principles:

• Integration with Nature: Children learn best when grounded physically in nature and emotionally connected to it.
• Hands-On Engagement: Gardening, outdoor play, and sensory experiences foster responsibility and observation.
• Holistic and Sensory Learning: All five senses and the life forces of nature are key to fully developing the child.
• Strength and Resilience: Outdoor life builds physical, emotional, and spiritual capacities in children.

A century ago, families and their children living in deprived urban areas did not have easy access to nature, or to open green spaces. To address this and other social deprivations, the Froebel Educational Institute (FEI) set up kindergartens to provide free or low-fee educational provision for infants and pre-school children. One such was Somers Town Nursery School in North London, which opened in 1910, headed by Miss Lawrence, FEI Principal.  The Froebel Archive holds the Somers Town Annual Reports from 1911-1944, which provide detailed insight into their work.

Somers Town kindergarten had a small garden where the children could play and grow plants. But to provide a more direct connection with nature, the children were treated to summer holidays in the countryside. The 1917 Annual Report records, poignantly: 

… the country holiday is one of the most important factors, if not the most important factor in promoting the health and happiness of the children throughout the year. The fresh air, good food, the country experiences and general cheerfulness all do untold and lasting good. The basis of spiritual and intellectual life is best laid in the country, therefore, from all points of view, the holiday should become a definite feature of the Nursery School programme and should be prolonged, more especially for delicate children.

The 1923-24 report records the purchase of a property in Cross-in-Hand, Sussex, named Somers Cottage, to be used as a permanent summer holiday home: 

We have just secured a Home in the heart of Sussex … and we hope to have it ready in July for the children’s holiday. The property, which covers nearly 4 acres, contains a cottage and out-buildings, and more accommodation is to be added. There are two meadows, a little woodland, and a tiny orchard. A very safe and charming running stream is a boundary on one side of the property.  

The Archive holds special summer reports from the cottage, describing these holidays and how they benefitted the forty or so underprivileged pre-school children who attended them. 

Above: Reports of the Summer Holiday residence for the Somers Town Nursery School, from 1927 and 1930. The 1927 report includes a whimsical poem describing the children’s experience, concluding:

A meadow wide where the cuckoo calls,
And a grey-roofed barn with white-washed walls.
Where you meet a cow on your walk to the post,
Take your tea with a rabbit, a pixie as host.
I know this true, I am well assured, 
For my heart is glad and my cough is cured.
Though my hands are grubby, my face is brown
With the breath of a wind not found in town.
So I shan’t forget the joyous land
A few miles from London – at Cross-in-Hand. 

The 1929 report highlights the long-term benefits of holidays in the country: 

To see those London babies at Somers Cottage is a sight worth while; and it is wonderful to think what it means to them – this healthy holiday, full of happiness from morning till night, in an ideal spot deep in the country, away from main roads and the bustle and noise of traffic… The freedom of the children is very striking and is not abused. What precious memories are stored up by these little city babies. The happiness and physical well being must undoubtedly sow the seeds of a higher standard of living for the future.

The Summer Holiday Report from 1931 reads: 

We only wish that all our kind friends could see the children on holiday – running about the meadow, ‘tucking away’ their meals, or being tucked up in their tiny beds. To see the colour grow in their cheeks and the sunburn on their legs, is, by itself, ample compensation for the work and the cares of the holiday month.  

Froebel Students also enjoyed field trips to the countryside as part of their studies, organised by Miss Rosalie Lulham, head of the Nature Department. Some of their nature journals from these trips, like the one pictured below from a 1921 trip to Keston Common in Bromley, are held in the archives. The journals, illustrated with students' photographs, sketches and watercolours, record sightings of birds, insects and plants - as well as humorous anecdotes of their adventures.

"We were summoned from our fishing by Miss Lulham’s whistle (mistaken by some for a rare bird) to hear the charming story of Caesar’s well….Further on, by the mill, Miss East saw a snake!”

You can see more examples of century-old Froebel students' nature notebooks in these previous snapshots from 2022 and 2024. 

The Froebel Archives provide even earlier evidence of children enjoying the outdoors at the Michaelis Kindergarten, Notting Hill in the 1890s:

...and of Froebel students in the 1930s taking advantage of the summer weather at Grove House to picnic on the lawn, nap on the terrace, and even perform some open air theatre!

Some of the above content was previously published in Women’s History Today, Summer 2024.

It seems that their contemporaries at Whitelands College also made the most of the outdoors in the summer months. Gemma Bentley, Whitelands Archivist, provides this photograph from the College Archives. It appears in an album belonging to Dorothy G Browning, a member of the first student cohort at Putney, from 1929-31. The caption reads ‘Us “sleeping” on my balcony.' The album also contains photographs of some of their teachers doing the same!  

"Us 'sleeping' on my balcony" - Dorothy G. Browning and friends.

Southlands and Whitelands Colleges and Open-air schools

The concept of open air teaching also became popular in the early 20th century, in order to combat the widespread rise of tuberculosis (TB), especially in crowded cities such as London. One such open-air school was organised by Southlands College in the 1930s.

Gilly King, Southlands College Archives Historian, writes:

England’s first open-air school opened in 1907 and the schools gained popularity in the 1930s when tuberculosis was rife.  For the most part, the pupils were not suffering from tuberculosis (TB) but were children identified in the terminology of the day as "pre-tuberculous". It was believed - wrongly, as it turned out - that TB usually began in childhood and that certain children were especially susceptible. If these children could be reached, doctors thought, perhaps the disease could be stamped out. The children were effectively outdoors all day every day, and lessons were never abandoned however cold it got. Nor was there any heating, so pupils had nothing but coats, blankets and mittens to keep the blood circulating. 

The Southlands College History records that one of the most rewarding experiments of 1937-38 was the open-air class held in the grounds of Southlands College.  

On 3rd June 1937, twenty children from Hotham Road Girls’ School, Putney, aged between eight and eleven, perceived as needing open air treatment came to Southlands College, which provided the grounds and their mid-day meal at low cost. The London County Council provided desks, chairs, rest beds (pictured below) and blankets and a teacher to take charge of the children. Gradually the Southlands students had the opportunity to take part in the work.  

As months went by the class seemed loath to return to their indoor classroom in Putney, and eventually it continued through the winter and another spring. The London County Council erected a shed for housing the furniture and blankets, and the Central Council for School Broadcasting installed a wireless set to see whether it could be used in open-air classes. 

As at Froebel, both students (left) and children (right) enjoyed nature studies and gardening, as seen in the photographs below:

The children's mothers were able to visit on Mother's Afternoon, as seen in this photograph taken in September 1936:

You can read more about these open-air schools here. The four images above are from the Southlands College archive.

Whitelands College also took part in the open air schools movement. Gemma Bentley, Whitelands Archivist, writes:

The College Archive holds a student project by Enid May Ball (who studied there from 1925 to 1927), entitled The Nottingham Arboretum North Open Air Recovery School. 

According to her report, “Open-air education has been very much developed in Nottingham within the last few years. There are several schools of this kind, but the most recent and up-to-date recovery school is that of the Arboretum North Open-Air school which was only opened in January 1926”. The report gives fascinating insight into the school’s every day activities, meals and more.

The principles of outdoor teaching and nature study are still just as important in Roehampton University's curriculum today. You can find books about this in the lIbrary, including these two titles, Dirty Teaching and Messy Maths.

This post is dedicated to the author of the above books, Dr Juliet Robertson, outdoor teaching consultant and founder of the blog I'm a teacher, get me OUTSIDE here!, on her birthday.