Outdoor Education for Inclusive Learning

Name: Outdoor Education for Inclusive Learning
Price: 400 EUR

Why this is Erasmus+ eligible

Structured, multi-day programme (5 days) with a pre-defined schedule and learning outcomes — not a passive lecture format.

Built around interaction: participants engage directly with the trainer and with peers from other countries throughout the course.

Transnational by design — open to participants travelling from outside the host country, a core requirement of Erasmus+ mobility funding.

Aligned with the Erasmus+ horizontal priority: Inclusion & Diversity.

The Erasmus+ Programme Guide names inclusion and diversity as a horizontal priority, stating that "when designing their projects and activities, organisations should have an inclusive approach, making them accessible to a diverse range of participants" (Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Part A – Priorities of the Erasmus+ Programme, p. 7). The Guide also describes disability as covering impairments "which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder someone's full and effective participation" — placing the problem exactly where this week does: not in the student, but in the interaction between the student and how the session was designed. Most schools already have inclusion language for the classroom; far fewer have anything for the trip, the fieldwork day or the site visit, which is where participation quietly narrows. This week produces that missing material — sessions audited against what they assume, activities with more than one genuine way in, and a written case for the changes one teacher cannot make alone.

Source: Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Key Action 1 — School Education Mobility.

Overview

This week you take one outdoor session you already run and rebuild it so more students can do the real work of it, not a smaller version watching from the side.

Monday — you stand in the outdoor space the course is running in and list everything a session there takes for granted.
Tuesday — you rework how instructions travel outdoors, past wind, glare and distance.
Wednesday — you build one activity with three different ways in, then check that none of them is a token.
Thursday — you name who is struggling outdoors without it showing, and plan for them before the trip.
Friday — you sort the week’s fixes into what’s yours to change, what needs a colleague, and what only leadership can approve.

You go home with a filled-in access audit of a session you actually run, that session rebuilt, one activity with three genuine routes through it already tested by people who didn’t design it, a pre-trip plan with the note that goes home, and a one-page request addressed to whoever can actually approve what you can’t. The audit, the rebuild and the sort all start with the session and the group you already have.

Description

Inclusion tends to stop at the classroom door. Schools that think carefully about access indoors go outside and quietly assume everyone can read a worksheet in bright sun, keep up on uneven ground, and afford the boots. The usual fix comes at the end, as an adaptation for the students who need one. Universal Design for Learning starts from the other end — design for the range of people who will actually be there, and there is far less left to adapt afterwards.

The week works from the current version of that framework, CAST’s UDL Guidelines 3.0, published in 2024. Its three principles set the shape of the week: how information gets across, how students move through a space and show what they know, and what makes someone want to be out there at all. Version 3.0 also names barriers at individual, institutional and system level — which is exactly where the ones outdoors sit. A gravel path is not a student’s problem.

Monday audits, in the actual outdoor space the group is standing in, what a session takes for granted. Tuesday rebuilds outdoor instructions so they survive wind, glare and distance. Wednesday is the heart of it: designing one activity with three genuine routes through it, then testing whether any of them is really a lesser version. Thursday is for the students who are quietly not coping outdoors and mostly look fine. Friday works the honest limit case, and sorts everything the week produced into what you can change alone, what needs a colleague, and what only your leadership can authorise.

What separates this from generic outdoor training is the order of operations. Access is not a caveat added once the activity already exists; it is the constraint the activity gets designed around from the first minute — which is how UDL treats an ordinary classroom, and what outdoor education tends to drop the moment the group leaves the building.

One boundary, so you can tell the two apart: this week is about access and design. What being outdoors does to attention — and what the evidence for that actually supports — is the subject of a different course, Outdoor Education: Reconnecting with Nature.

Methodology

Audit before design

No session is redesigned until the group has stood in the space and said out loud what it assumes about who can take part. The audit, not the redesign, is what produces the surprises.

Everything is run outdoors before it goes home

Designs are tested in an outdoor space at or near the centre — uneven ground, wind, glare and distance included — and by participants who did not write them.

The no-token-participation rule

A route only counts when the student taking it is doing the real work of the activity, not a quieter version of it on a bench. Where that turns out to be genuinely impossible, the week says so plainly instead of dressing it up — Friday is built around exactly those cases.

What you'll take home

Audit an outdoor session for what it silently assumes about who can take part, sorted under the three UDL principles.

Rebuild a set of outdoor instructions so they still work in wind, glare and at distance.

Design one outdoor activity with three genuine routes through it — and test that none of them is a lesser version.

Plan the layer that sits before a trip: real choices, opt-in roles, rest that isn't a punishment, and kit that doesn't sort your class by income.

Sort the week's work into what you can change alone, what needs a colleague, and what only your leadership can authorise — with the last of the three written up as a one-page request.

Daily programme

Opening and introductions: each participant names one student in their class — no names used — who would find the next school trip hardest, and says why in one sentence. That sentence is the case they test their own designs against all week
UDL Guidelines 3.0 (CAST, 2024): the three principles — Engagement, Representation, Action & Expression — and the shift that matters here, that barriers are described at individual, institutional and system level rather than located in the student
Straight outside: the group audits the space it is standing in — not only the obvious physical questions of surface, gradient, shade and distance, but what the space also asks of attention, memory and communication. Where does an instruction stop being audible? What does a trail marker assume you can see, read, or already know?
Each participant describes one outdoor session they already run and lists what it assumes: that you can walk it, see it, hear it over wind, read the sheet, hold three instructions in your head at once, ask for help in front of everyone, tolerate the heat, and own the kit
Output: an audit of one real session, its assumptions sorted under the three principles

Warm-up: in pairs, one participant describes a route through the site using words alone — no pointing, no drawing, no walking it — while the other tries to follow it, then they swap. Single-channel instruction fails fast, which is the day's subject
What happens to Perception, Language & Symbols and Building Knowledge the moment you leave the room: instructions given once, while walking, into the wind; a worksheet in glare; a trail marked by colour alone; a new key term introduced outdoors where nobody can look it up
Rebuild: each group takes one set of outdoor instructions from a member's own Day 1 audit and works out how the same content can arrive by more than one route at once — demonstrated, spoken, shown, mapped, or handed over as something to hold — choosing what that particular instruction needs rather than filling three boxes
Field test: one group gives its instructions at distance and in wind, another follows them exactly as given. The gap between what was meant and what was done is the finding, and it is usually larger than anyone expects
Output: one instruction set that survives being outdoors

Guideline 4, Interaction — the guideline about moving and taking part in a physical space, which outdoors is the whole problem: gradients, distance, rest points, and what happens when a group moves at the pace of its fastest member — plus what the guideline's second half asks: whether the aids and materials a student depends on actually work in wind, glare and on uneven ground
Designing three genuine routes through one activity from a participant's own session: same task, same learning, three ways in — then the honest test of whether one of them is really a lesser version with a friendly name
Expression & Communication and Strategy Development outdoors: showing what you learned without a clipboard and a worksheet — a photograph, a recorded description, a collected specimen, a drawing, an explanation given to a partner who has to act on it
Run it: groups take each other's activities and do them, including the routes they did not design and would not have chosen
Output: one outdoor activity with three routes, tested by people who did not write it

Welcoming Interests & Identities, Sustaining Effort & Persistence and Emotional Capacity — the day that gets skipped, because a student struggling outdoors often looks fine from a distance
The real list, built by the group: fear of insects, dogs or water; heat and sun; the sensory load of wind and noise; a child who has never been in a forest; kit that costs money and quietly marks out who has it; clothing, modesty and body image on a hike; the student who cannot keep up and knows everyone can see it
The identity dimension 3.0 added, used as intended — not a separate session about diversity, but a question asked of each of the three principles
Building the layer that sits before the trip: choices that are real rather than cosmetic, roles someone can opt into rather than out of, a rest that isn't visibly a punishment, and what the school provides so that equipment is not a sorting mechanism
Drafting the note that goes home: what the day involves, what is provided, what is genuinely optional, and who to tell about what — written so a family does not have to disclose anything private to get it right
Output: an engagement plan for one participant's real trip, and the note that goes with it

Cross-audit: groups swap the activities they built and check them against a short list drawn from the three principles — not "is this nice" but "who is still doing a lesser version"
The limit case, worked honestly: an outdoor activity that cannot be made accessible without becoming a different activity. The options are to redesign it, to replace it, or to run it and be explicit about who it leaves out — and why inventing a token role is the worst of the three
Sorting the week's work by the three levels of barrier: what you can change alone in your own sessions, what needs one colleague or a department, and what only your leadership or local authority can change — surfacing, transport, funded equipment, staffing ratios
Writing the third pile up: outdoors it is almost always physical or financial — a path surface, a minibus, a set of school-owned boots, a second adult. The request names one person, one thing, what it costs, which sessions it unlocks, and the work already done that needed none of it
Closing: certificates, course evaluation and event survey

Please note: sessions run from 09:30 to 15:00, Monday to Friday, with a break for lunch. Timings can shift a little to suit the venue and the group. If you'd like a specific topic covered, let us know when you apply — the confirmed day-by-day schedule is sent to registered participants ahead of the course.

Certificate: we issue the Certificate of Attendance to everyone who's present for at least 80% of the course — tracked with the daily sign-in sheet (see Certificate & assessment).

Equipment: a few of our courses ask participants to bring a laptop — check the day-by-day programme above, or ask us if you're not sure.

Need a formal invoice or proforma for your school's records? Ask us — we issue official invoices with the participant's name and course details.

Materials & tools

The UDL Guidelines 3.0 (CAST, 2024) — the framework the week is organised around, read directly from CAST's own free site and worked with on all five days

An outdoor access audit sheet, built on Day 1 against a real space and reused on Day 5 to sort each finding by the level it actually sits at

A three-route activity template, filled in by the group on Day 3 — and a cross-audit checklist used on Day 5 against each other's designs

A trip-planning outline covering choices, roles, rest and equipment, filled in on Day 4 alongside the draft note home

An outdoor space at or near the centre, used as the week's test site rather than a backdrop, and each participant's own session, described on Day 1 and rebuilt across the week

Certificate & assessment

This is a Certificate of Attendance, not an exam-based qualification — recognition comes from completing the structured programme, not from passing a test. The real, lasting value is in the competencies listed above under What you'll take home.

Erasmus Mobility Academy

Certificate of Attendance

Outdoor Education for Inclusive Learning · 5 days · 25 hrs

+ Europass Mobility document

Type your name above — clearly marked "SAMPLE" in the PDF, not an official document.

The real certificate is signed by your trainer and EMA's authorised signatory. Your own signature isn't on this document — it's captured separately, on the Europass Mobility document.

Need to verify a real certificate? Check it online using the serial number and participant's full name, or contact us directly — [email protected], OID E10304561.

Attendance

Tracked using a sign-in sheet with one signature per participant per day (paper or digital). This record is used to issue your Certificate of Attendance and Europass Mobility document. View sign-in sheet (PDF)

Output

Every participant leaves with a completed Dissemination & School Impact Plan — a step-by-step template for applying the course back at your school (see below).

Feedback

An end-of-course evaluation form is sent to every participant after the course ends — a chance to reflect on what you've learned and how you'll apply it, and it helps us keep improving the course for future participants.

Your paperwork

Keep your travel tickets, boarding passes and (if you used green travel) any related receipts — your school or National Agency may ask for these for their own Erasmus+ reporting.

How to prepare

Nothing needs preparing on paper. It helps to arrive with one outdoor session you already run somewhere in your mind — even a rough one, even one you were never happy with — because that is what you will be rebuilding. If you don't have one, you will work from the site here; nobody is left without material.

Practically: a good part of the week happens outside, so closed comfortable shoes, something for sun and something for wind, and a refillable water bottle will make the days easier. If you use a mobility, hearing or vision aid outdoors, or if there is anything about walking, heat or terrain we should plan around, tell us when you book — it changes the route we choose, not whether you take part.

Practical information

Registration & documents

Not sure how registering works or what paperwork is involved? See our full Registration & Documents guide — from applying to your Certificate of Attendance, in one place.

Invitation letter

Need a formal invitation letter for your school or embassy? Request one — we send it within 2 business days. See a sample (PDF).

Learning Agreement

Prepared by our staff and sent to you and your school once your registration form is submitted — see what it looks like. See a sample (PDF).

Billing & invoicing

We issue official invoices/proformas with the participant's name and course details — ask us. Payment is due in full by bank transfer before the course start date. See a sample (PDF).

Airport transfer

Guidance on getting from the nearest airport to the venue is included in your welcome information.

Accommodation

We can recommend partner hotels close to the venue in the host city — ask us when you apply.

For your school / proposal

School impact

After completing this Inclusive Education course, the participating staff member can transfer outcomes directly to their school: a short briefing for colleagues sharing the key takeaways, applying relevant tools or strategies from the programme in their own role, and inclusion of the course materials in the school's professional development resources — turning one person's mobility into a wider institutional gain that supports the school's European Development Plan. Use the Dissemination & School Impact Plan below to fill in your own — it saves as you go and can generate a one-page summary for your coordinator too.

Prefer a blank, course-independent version of this template? Get it here →

After the course

Participants will receive their certificates (Certificate of Attendance + Europass).

Participants will complete a general course evaluation and event survey.

Participants will receive course materials, videos, photos, and PDF documents in both digital and print formats.

Follow-up support: an email group is created for idea exchange, self-evaluation materials are provided, and participants receive a follow-up check-in after 3 months — by then most people have run at least one rebuilt session, so the check-in is about what the three routes actually looked like with real students.

Frequently asked

This course is an eligible training activity under Erasmus+ Key Action 1 (School Education Mobility) — the course fee, travel and subsistence fall within the eligible cost categories. Whether it is covered depends on your own project's approved grant agreement and your National Agency's rules; we provide all the invoices, attendance records and certificates your National Agency requires for reporting.

B1 is enough — you do not need to be fluent. Trainers speak slowly and plainly, every session is built around doing something rather than sitting and listening, and groups are mixed by nationality so people help each other out. A rough test: if you could follow a staff meeting held in English and ask a question in it, you will be fine here.

Absolutely — group bookings of 3+ from one school receive priority placement, and we can schedule a dedicated session for groups of 12 or more.

Our courses run on request at our centres in Antalya, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin, Budapest, Bremen and Rome. Tell us your preferred city and dates and we will arrange a session.

Tuition, all course materials, both certificates (attendance + Europass Mobility) and a half-day guided tour of the host city with a local guide. Flights, accommodation and travel insurance are booked separately — we send a vetted hotel list.

You can move to any later session free of charge. Cancellations made 30+ days before the start date receive a full refund; a reduced refund applies closer to the date — see our full Cancellation & Refund Policy for the exact schedule.

The Erasmus+ Programme Guide names inclusion and diversity as a horizontal priority, stating that "when designing their projects and activities, organisations should have an inclusive approach, making them accessible to a diverse range of participants" (Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Part A – Priorities of the Erasmus+ Programme, p. 7). The Guide also describes disability as covering impairments "which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder someone's full and effective participation" — placing the problem exactly where this week does: not in the student, but in the interaction between the student and how the session was designed. Most schools already have inclusion language for the classroom; far fewer have anything for the trip, the fieldwork day or the site visit, which is where participation quietly narrows. This week produces that missing material — sessions audited against what they assume, activities with more than one genuine way in, and a written case for the changes one teacher cannot make alone. Frame it in your own project's terms — your National Agency's current call will confirm exactly how it applies.

Yes, and not only those. Access for a range of mobility, sensory and cognitive needs is the design constraint every activity starts from rather than an adjustment made afterwards. Day 3 is given entirely to it: designing one activity with three genuine routes through it, then testing — with people who did not write it — whether any of those routes is really a lesser version.