The Research Files Episode 111: Supporting student wellbeing needs through considered outdoor spaces

Thanks for tuning in to this podcast from Teacher Magazine, the resource for K-12 educators published by ACER, the Australian Council for Educational Research. I'm Dominique Beech. 

Thinking about the outdoor space in your school setting, how well is it serving students? How well is it serving yourself and your colleagues? When was the last time you reviewed the space, or asked students, staff and families for their views? In today’s episode of The Research Files, I’m joined by Dr Gweneth Leigh and Hannah Richardson from the University of Canberra. They’ve just released what they’re calling a Schoolyard Greenprint – a series of free-to-access papers sharing their findings from almost 2 years of research into outdoor spaces in secondary school settings. In our conversation, you’ll hear why it was important for them to focus on the secondary school setting specifically, what educators and young people told them about the outdoor spaces at their schools, and how these resources can support work in your own setting. Let’s jump in. 

Dominique Beech: Dr. Gweneth Leigh and Hannah Richardson, thank you so much for joining us on the Teacher podcast today. I'm really excited to chat about this body of research. Before we get into the details, though, I'd love to hear a little bit about the 2 of you. Could you introduce yourselves to our listeners?

Dr Gweneth Leigh: Absolutely. So my name is Dr Gweneth Leigh. I am a landscape architect and public health researcher. I'm a Research Fellow based at the Health Research Institute here at the University of Canberra. And my research interests have been exploring how our built environment impacts our health and habits, and particularly the habits of our teenagers.

Hannah Richardson: And I'm Hannah Richardson. I'm a researcher here at the University of Canberra, working with Gweneth on this research about schoolyards. And I'm also a mum, so I know a thing or 2 about outdoor spaces in schools.

DB: And so we're going to be talking about the Schoolyard Greenprint, as you call it, today. Why was this research important for you to conduct and who exactly was involved in that research?

GL: Well, I'll start with the story. The research really began years ago when my own kids were entering into high school. And I found at the time my eldest son began year 7, there was some trauma at the school. Some kids had actually, some had taken their lives and there was a need for spaces where they could process this information. I remember I would walk with my son in parks afterwards, and it was a way for him to talk and process. And when we went back to the school itself, we found there weren't a lot of spaces outdoors in secondary years for them to have that opportunity as more of these wellbeing spaces. And that really got my mind really going forward in terms of, well, if it's an issue here in this particular story, surely this must be something that's being encountered by a lot of students elsewhere. And so the research really began to grow from there. 

We looked into the amount of time that students spend in their school environments and it's huge. In Australia, it's over 10,000 hours across their adolescence. We also know that there's increasing rates of mental health issues. Issues of stress and anxiety are continuing to grow among this cohort, especially since COVID. And I think there's an opportunity to really turn our sights to a resource that's easily accessible, and that's just outside the classroom. Part of my research has been looking at how we measure some of those impacts of our time outside. And I know there's a growing body of research demonstrating that green spaces are important to help regulate our mood. They help us engage in physical activity. They create spaces of welcome and connection with our peers. And I thought this is a real opportunity for us to translate those opportunities into those outdoor spaces in secondary school at a time when the students have such rapid emotional, psychological, social changes happening. Surely this can be a tool that can help provide places of calm, places of connection, and places of belonging at a time that can be quite tumultuous for them.

HR: What really drew me to this research was that I'm a mum, so I've got kids. And what I really noticed is that they have a lot of energy and they also want to take risks in the schoolyard. But the schoolyard doesn't always provide that. Now, of course, as a mum, and I'm sure as a teacher, you want them to come home in one piece. But they do need those opportunities for taking risks, especially as they get a bit older, and especially for the girls who might not feel like they are encouraged or welcome to go out onto the oval. So I really wanted to explore how we can provide risk taking in the schoolyard while also providing it in a way that teachers feel confident to supervise and my kids come back in one piece.

DB: And so, Gweneth, you mentioned there that, you know, these outdoor spaces can provide places of connection and belonging for secondary school students. I was interested to ask you actually why the focus was specifically on a high school setting and you've articulated that quite well there. Was there anything else to mention on why the decision was made to focus specifically on secondary school settings, outdoor spaces in secondary school settings?

GL: Absolutely. I think we found, as part of this research, we were reviewing design standards and guidelines in terms of the kinds of components that we were including in the outdoor spaces in high school. And we found that in primary school, there is this great growing emphasis on nature play; on how we can use these as creative outlets for kids to explore. But in [secondary] years, it's interesting. There is a jarring transition, you could say, between year 6 to year 7, where these kids are moving from these playful environments into something that is much more structured that's often dominated by formal sport settings. And that play component isn't readily obvious and accessible. At the same time, we've got a broad range of need within these students because the needs of, say, a 12- or a 13-year-old who has energy to burn can be very different to the needs of a 17- or 18-year-old student who's quite focused on their academics, really wanting that quiet time to be able to study and to really just hang with their friends. And I guess we saw that looking at those outdoor spaces in talking with principals and designers, they also haven't really evolved over these last few decades. And so there is this opportunity at a time when the actual architecture of schools has evolved in positive ways that expresses, you know, technological advances, creative classroom formats. How can some of those ideas translate into our outdoor spaces and let them catch up a bit in terms of what opportunities there are for students to have similar kinds of innovative outdoor experiences. 

HR: Yeah, so if we look at the data, what we found really interesting was that there's a real divergence when it comes to the secondary school setting around what students say they want and need and what the adults say they want and need. So for primary school, there's a strong coalescence around the data. Everyone knows that the students need to get out and exercise and play. And then as they get into secondary years, there's this gap. And we were really curious as to why adults think very differently in terms of what the students need, in terms of what the students think. And some of those divergences come around things like play but they also come around things like rest. So if you ask a lot of principals and adults, they think the outdoors is a lot for going out and exercising and running around – which it certainly is, but it's also a place for rest and recuperation after some stressful events. That's what the students really told us about. They told us they needed to go out and rest and recuperate. They're looking for a hammock, a bean bag, a space to relax so they can return to learning full of energy. 

GL: I would also follow up and just say that part of the gap that we've been trying to address through these guides is what Hannah relates to there, that student voice. In the fact that a lot of principals who we would talk to would say, well, ‘we know the kids need something different, but we're not quite sure what they want’. And sometimes they don't know what they want. They don't know anything different to what's been provided to them. And that's where – through this research, it's trying to ask different questions where it's less about creating a grocery list of items, but rather documenting, what are their experiences? How does it make them feel to be in these spaces? What would they like to be doing that they can't do right now? And that was for some of the key questions that were important to ask a lot of the students we engaged with so that we could then glean from that particular themes, which then informed the guides.

DB: I read that this study took you nearly 2 years to complete. I'd love to know the detail of what the research actually involved. You mentioned just there that you engaged with students, with teachers, with designers. Who was involved? What did the research involve? Tell me about it.

GL: It was a fun process, but it was a huge one. So the project really began by trying to understand first what we have. So it was a matter of reviewing design guidelines and standards from around the country, not only from the built perspective, but also from what exists in terms of those mental health frameworks that are available for students. And one of the gaps we noticed was that there are some great ideas in all of these documents, both between those national health wellbeing frameworks for students and design guides, but they weren't necessarily talking to one another. There were areas of the environment being addressed in both, but we needed to find a way to bridge. So that was one of our first goals, was to identify, well, what's the language that's needed to bring these 2 areas – design and health – together? 

Part of this also involved, for understanding what we have, doing an aerial inventory. There hasn't been a lot of research looking at exactly what did we put on the ground and how is it impacting the way in which students use these spaces? So, we actually took what we called that in aerial inventory of looking at aerial maps from around the country. We did a randomised sample of schools, around a 2% sample, and we sat there and measured, you know, how much surface area, what kind of surface area, looking at areas of turf, of pavement, counting trees, trying to capture where there were play spaces. And mind you, it can have its limitations in terms of what we can see from an aerial photo, but it was still powerful because we realised there are certain ways in which buildings are situated on a site. There is a pattern in terms of internal courtyards and relationship to the surrounding oval areas, the parcel size of these spaces. 

One interesting finding was that in schools that were established, say, back in the 1930s through to the 1960s had much larger sites than the ones we were developing more recently in this last decade. And I think we all know that trend of vertical schools continuing to increase given our density, our urbanising cities. And so that raises the red flag of, well, if we have reduced sizes of these sites, where are students accessing those outdoor spaces during recess and lunch periods? So starting from that perspective, that gave us a sense of, well, an initial lay of the land. 

And then it was about having what we called a listening and learning tour. And that's where, again, we started high level to identify what were some of the broader needs as perceived by those working in this space. And that's where we began through these wonderful online workshops. We had participants from around the country, penetrating areas and asking questions around built environment, education, health, youth advocacy, and governance. And actually, I'll let Hannah speak more to some of these online workshops that we began with that connected a lot of those experts from around the country in this conversation. 

HR: Yeah, so co-design was really important to us in this project. And we prioritised right from the start, speaking directly with the people who are affected by schoolyards. Overall, we spoke to and engaged with over 1,500 people. That includes 500 students that we engage with directly. So the online piece, we had an online workshop process with adults that engaged with over 90 people from around the country in all states and territories. We visited 3 schools in Queensland and Adelaide for on-site site visits, focus groups and activities that the students did with us. We also really prioritised speaking to
specific cohorts who might be overlooked in some of these situations. We ran face-to-face workshops with refugees, First Nations and the queer community. 

We also did practitioner interviews. So these were interviews with designers who specialise in designing school yards around the country. So there were 12 of those, as well as face-to-face co-design workshops. So they were really important because we brought together students, young people, designers, teachers, and they validated our emerging findings, as well as starting to design some of the recommendations that you see in the reports. So we held those in Canberra, Adelaide and Brisbane. And of course, then there were principal interviews. Gwyneth will remind me the number. I think it was 40 or something? So, we did principal interviews where, you know, there were conversations where we spoke to principals about the challenges that they face and the successes; the examples where they've done something really well. And we also got them to do a photo survey. So we got them to take photos around their schools of successful spaces, challenging spaces and spaces that they wanted to improve. And then we analysed those photos and you can see many of them in the report. Have I missed any, Gweneth? 

GL: Oh, listen, I think I should also mention that the key to this project was bringing many on the journey with us. And so from the very beginning, we also created a youth reference group. They were called the Youth Voices, and they helped set a lot of the direction. Because as adults, we have our own perceptions in terms of what we think are the needs, but what was critical to this research was making sure that youth were co-designers, co-researchers with us in that process. And so we had 5 remarkable young people who had just recently graduated high school join us in this journey. They were spanned from Queensland to South Australia to here in Canberra to regional New South Wales. And those would be meetings conducted pretty monthly in terms of having them tell us whether or not the ideas we were putting forward made sense. They came up with their own ideas, which we then embedded into our own design processes and really marched with us every step of the way. 

At the same time, we had 2 other really important groups. One was what we called our working group. And again, that was bringing leadership from a lot of really important organisations and individuals. We had a wonderful, retired principal, Andrew Fitzsimons. I need to give him a shout out. He was amazing in making sure that our research was grounded in the realities of what principals experience and what teachers have to manage on a daily basis. We had Learning Environments Australasia, this wonderful group that combines the design and management and use of their educational facilities. Headspace created a really important perspective in terms of that youth mental health and wellbeing component, along with Australian Youth Affairs Coalition to really provide that, embed the youth perspective into our design. And most importantly, Landscape Foundation of Australia, also from that broader environmental design perspective. And from that, then we also had a reference group that expanded to about 40 individuals who we would also validate our research with. So this was the, as part of that co-design, it was so important to continue to be transparent, share what we're hearing, and listen back and engage and update where we got things wrong and where we got things right, which I think really is a testament to the success of then what we created at the end of this journey.

HR: Yeah, and especially the feedback from teachers and principals. They're very good at giving feedback and telling us when you're on track and off track. And, you know, Australian Secondary Principals’ Association was a member of our reference group, and they gave us some tough feedback right from the start. And I'm so glad they did because the products are better. They told us when we weren't engaging with the right people and we know that our advice then is grounded in a reality that makes it implementable for those people.

As part of our research, we engaged with teachers and we engaged with them not only about how they support students in the outdoors in terms of teaching in the outdoors, but we wanted to know from them how else they use the outdoor spaces. And we heard significantly that they want outdoor spaces that they can use for themselves to downregulate. We heard a lot about how teachers are feeling really overwhelmed. That was the single most common term used. They're feeling overwhelmed and they're feeling frustrated. And they told us that they want an outdoor space that helps them to re-regulate so that they can return to teaching at their full capacity. 

So they told stories about wanting to go and take an outdoor, go outdoors to have a coffee. One teacher told us that she only uses her desk for eating her lunch and she wants to be able to go outside and have that lunch outside under a tree near some gardens and near a space that she's not constantly having to tell kids to put their hats back on. So they do need that privacy for themselves so that they can return to teaching. 

They also told us quite independently how they use the outdoors to help students regulate. So one of them told us about a kid called Sarah who had a panic attack in the schoolyard. And they just wanted to be able to subtly take Sarah maybe on a little walk, maybe to a little pause point that had a little bit of vegetation around it so that they could help Sarah downregulate and return her to the break area without it being really obvious to everyone else that she was having a tough time. So I was really surprised that a lot of those stories came out. They also told us about teaching in the outdoors. But Gweneth, did you want to add something there? 

GL: Yeah. In discussions with fellow researchers and teachers, a lot of them are remarking that students and themselves can struggle to really get through the school day when their wellbeing isn't at the top. And I think a lot of teachers are passionate about teaching, they're passionate about their students, and they're passionate about supporting them, but also need a chance to fill their own bucket. And that can be quite hard in school in finding those moments, as Hannah mentions, where they can actually comfortably leave their desk and access an outdoor space that they can be independent in and have a moment to catch their own breath before returning to tough routines sometimes. So I think the beauty of this work is I think it can find answers for both cohorts and really prioritising the wellbeing of students and the people who are teaching them and supporting them on that daily basis. 

HR: And teachers also told us that they want to be able to teach outside, but often the built environment gets in the way of that. And it can be quite small things. So things like doors that are narrow, steps that you have to go down in order to get outside that make it hard to take out a trolley or a whiteboard. And when you get outside, there might not be enough coverage or the space is not enclosed, so students feel distracted, it's noisy. So just small things that we can tell the design community and principals and leaders who want to make change, that if you can put a small deck in outside that schoolyard, if you can put some trellising above the area so that you can train some vines over it so that it's got a bit of coverage, it's got a bit of enclosure, but you can still see through that trellis and see, so no one could be hiding behind it. Small things like that make a big difference. 

And we heard some great examples where school leaders saw the landscape itself as a teaching opportunity. It's not just about the curriculum space. And one that I would call out is Woodcroft College, which is in South Australia, and was designed by Swanbury Penglase. And they had, like, it's wet there, and they had an area that would get muddy. And I think a lot of people, a lot of principals would say, ‘well, let's put that water into a downpipe’, right? Like let's put some concrete in and we'll funnel that water across. But the principal there was really willing to engage with risk and see that landscape as an opportunity for learning. So they turned it into a bioswale, which is, you know, that's a bit of a technical term for a ditch, but it's a ditch that's covered in plants and gravel and so forth. And so that area floods periodically. And it provided this great learning opportunity for those students who can learn about Australian native species, like banksias that flood tolerant. And so it floods, it fills with water, they can see the cycles of weather and drought and flood in Australia and learn about the native plants. And then, you know, in summer, it's dry. And so it's got those grasses and the kids can walk through it. So, yeah, I think examples like that where the built environment can really support teachers to craft learning opportunities for their students, and it doesn't necessarily take a lot of money. You know, that bioswale actually is probably a lot cheaper than turning it into a big concrete drain. And it still manages all that mud that you don't want in an outdoor space. You know, it drains that water down into the water table so that the students aren't coming back muddy, but they're still having a great learning experience.

DB: So let's talk about that final product now then. You've published 4 documents, one of them is a great overview document and then 3 separate reports. We'll go through each of those 3 reports now. The first is the typologies report, then you have the design guide and the engagement toolkit. Let's start with the typologies report first. Can you tell me a little bit about what you share in this publication?

GL: Yes, so the Greenprint Typologies really takes a lot of that data that we synthesised from that aerial inventory and put it into terms of a document that's meant to be a planning and design resource to guide how school campuses can start to think about transitioning their outdoor spaces into wellbeing refuges for kids. And it was really informed by the kinds of materials and layouts of schools that we saw. And we realised from that sample of 100 schools, we found about 9 typologies or 9 types of layouts that predominated among secondary schools. And so with that, this document actually defines those 9 types and identifies the opportunities and strengths of each of those layouts. 

And it's accompanied also by where are these opportunities for wellbeing outdoor interventions? And it's really meant to help situate principals who may not be familiar with where you start in designing or renovating their school, giving them language and confidence to find their school within one of those 9 types. And it won't be necessarily a perfect match. There may be a hybrid between one type and another. But at least it starts to give them a lens through which to understand those outdoor spaces and their opportunities and limitations and how they can potentially begin a project and take it further.

DB: And next is the design guide report. What's covered in this document?

GL: This document is one that we are incredibly proud of because it really then captures some of the recommendations that are initially set out in the typology document. Then you go to the design guide and that includes in each about 6 chapters. So each one looks at the social, emotional, psychological, cultural, cognitive, and emotional needs of students. At the beginning of each chapter, it outlines what some of those developmental needs are, what we should think about. It gives a bit of data and evidence from our research. We surveyed many students and engaged with them, and we capture some of that into that beginning portion of each chapter, as well as identifying a spectrum of needs. So the document is really structured around personas, which is also taking some of the data that was told to us by students and capturing it through kind of an avatar to give a sense of how particular students have a range of needs that need to be accommodated for and have that permeate through this document. 

We also then have insights shared by students and principals in this document to ground a lot of the findings and then how that's interpreted into the broad guidance, practical solutions, and case studies that are featured, which also include things like glossaries and pop outs to really help again bridge the divide that there may be in terms of the knowledge of a design language and principles to also then address some of those specific needs of students, which Hannah, I think you... 

HR: Yeah, I think one of the big things that we've got great feedback from teachers and principals about is there's a lot of real examples from real schools and they're not all the new million dollar builds. There's a lot of small retrofits that have been done really successfully on a tiny budget. And we really wanted to highlight some of those because we don't want principals and teachers to walk away from this document thinking, ‘well, I don't have a million dollars, so I can't do this’. We've got examples there that – one example from J J Cahill [Memorial High] School in Sydney, where they had only money raised by the P&C and they delivered a solution, a new landscape there in their school, which was so good that it went to the Biennale [of Landscape Architecture in Barcelona]. So, there are some examples in there that are really fabulous and really, you don't need a lot of money to implement.

DB: Finally then we have the Engagement Toolkit report. This one sounds really interesting. Can you tell me about that one?

GL: The Engagement Toolkit really came out of conversations with principals who were looking for tools, right? They want to engage with students, but they weren't quite sure how, particularly from that design sense. And so the engagement toolkit really captures some of the tools that we used and puts out, makes it available to the broader education community as a starting point. It's arranged around 3 sections; one which focuses on the individual needs of students, and that pilots some great surveys in terms of getting a quick sense of what students want, maybe in terms of the materiality, the types of social spaces they may need, do they like to sit upright or do they like to lounge? It just starts to explore some of those nuances that we may not consider right now in those outdoor areas. It also incorporates these really important story templates, which were developed to again, derive some of those experiences by students as a way to capture some of the emotional feelings that some of these environments may create within them. 

At the same time, it also creates environmental opportunities. So there's exercises in there on how you can take an aerial map of your school and actually identify or have students map out their school day and help us understand patterns of use. Where do students tend to go most days, at least at recess and lunch? What areas do they feel a bit uncomfortable in or uncertain? What are the areas they perceive as active or social? And that can also help us figure out where interventions would be most valuable and could be of most benefit to students. 

And then, finally, there is what we call this community section, this co-design section, which then walks through the process of how you might want to engage your students in that process of co-design, which again, I think I'll let Hannah talk through some of those. 

HR: Yeah, well, I think when we speak to principals and teachers, they tell us that they do know their students well, they care a lot about their students, but they don't always know how to engage them in a design sense. And they're worried that engagement
with the students might take too much time or that they might get requests or lobby. It might be kind of lobbied for spaces that might not be realistic in the school environment. And so we've taken that on board, and we've provided a series of activities that they can do with their students that will help prevent some of those. 

And so one of them is giving students these personas and doing an empathy exercise so that the student in the room starts to come up with ideas for their outdoor spaces that are not just based on their own needs, but are based on others' needs. And you might also use that in a sort of P&C environment. You know, we've heard that sometimes the P&C can lobby for things that they think are important. So we've got some activities that get them thinking about the new needs of different perspectives and result in ideas for the schoolyard which meet the needs of a broad range of students.

DB: Wonderful. It all sounds so practical and useful for schools around the country and perhaps even indeed around the world. I'd love to finish off our conversation then by delving into a little bit about thinking about school leaders or teachers that are listening to this episode and are going to be jumping straight on your website after they've finished to download all of these documents and they want to have a think about what they can do in their own school setting using this wealth of information. Can you tell me about how you would imagine or advise these reports are used by a school leader or a school leadership team or an individual teacher? Is it, for instance, important that you view the documents as one, 2, 3 and 4? What would you advise? How would they get started with using these guides?

GL: That's a great question and one we're happy to walk through. I think for the principal or the educator who this is maybe a lot of new information, we'd recommend you first go to that overview document because that helps provide you alignment perhaps and grounding in terms of some of your experiences. We've tried to capture a lot of other principal insights in terms of some of the challenges or the perceived barriers in getting started, but then also some of the solutions and why this kind of work is important. So if you're campaigning for funding or for a reason, it gives you some of those criteria to put forward to your board, to put forward to the directorate in terms of really why we need to reconsider how we're using our outdoor space. 

If you have a situation though – maybe there's a particular student who really doesn't cope well in the existing outdoor spaces and say a principal has been approached to say, listen, the student needs a different kind of space. They need somewhere quiet. They need somewhere where they can self-regulate. But the outdoor sporting areas makes them feel too exposed, and the libraries are actually too crowded. What do you do? And this is where, as a principal, you may want to turn to the engagement toolkit first. You may want to pull a survey from there to understand, well, what are some of the student needs, right? And maybe especially if you may have a small kitty of funding, it connects first with the students. And that would be our first point of call, because what you think is good for the students, have it validated. Have them tell you what they think is the first priority. And that's where you can use some of those exercises that we spoke of to kind of first get that grounding.

Say, for example, this principal finds that there's quite a few students who are wanting a calm and quiet space in one of their courtyards. The principal may then think, well, I wonder, I'm not sure about the layout where the best place is for that. They may turn to the Typology Guide. They may find their layout that most resembles their school and get a better sense of, well, some of the opportunities and constraints to think through where that best place might be. As part of that, they may see some of the recommendations listed here that then refer them to the design guide, where they can turn to a section that's about downregulation. There's guidance provided there, some high-level principles on how you can potentially shape a space, but also some practical solutions in terms of what that might look like. And from there, it could be then going back to the students, confirming perhaps a particular focus for an area of design. It could be engaging a design professional, say a landscape architect, who can then return back to the engagement toolkit to continue to process, co-design a workshop on what that could look like, and really then enable your students to get a sense of ownership and autonomy in terms of their contribution to this space. 

Because at the moment, we know in terms of climate change, in terms of their sense of, you know, what they can contribute into their school, there's opportunities for them to take action and to really exercise some of the wonderful insights and knowledge that they're learning from the classroom to practice that outdoors. So some of those are some of the key components that we would initially recommend. 

HR: And we've been lucky enough to hear back from 2 schools that are already using our guides. So the first is Kiama High School. The principal there is Catherine Glover in the Illawarra region. And she was inspired by our work to improve her year 7 area. It's a really important area to transition students into the high school and make them feel safe. But there wasn't a lot going on in that area. There was a lot of hardscapes (so, concrete) and not much amenity, so not many options to play with and so forth. And she used our guide to focus more on some social spaces in that area so that the students can downregulate, but also choose. Not all social spaces are the same. Some kids, especially those neurodivergent kids, they don't really want to sit face-to-face and have a lot of eye contact. So she chose different types of seats, ones that foster a lot of interaction for those really social kids and ones that allow those neurodivergent kids to sit nearby each other but not have that intensity.

The other one was Eve Clark. She's a mum and she's from Cromer High School in Sydney. And she told us that she used the design guide and the other guides to advocate for change. So there was some money available in the school budget to support girls generally. And from reading our work, she realised, well, girls don't always have the options available to meet their needs in the outdoor spaces. So she used that to advocate her principal and the committee to get that money allocated to
providing some spaces for girls in the schoolyard.

That's all for this episode. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to visit our website to access the transcript for this podcast, where we've included all the links to the guides we spoke about, which are available for you to download for free. If you enjoyed this chat, please take a moment to follow our show on your podcast app if you haven't already, and leave us a review. Both of those things help more people like you to find our podcast, and they're a really big help to our team. We'll be back with a new episode very soon. 

Teacher Magazine is published by the Australian Council for Educational Research.

References

Leigh, G., Richardson, H., Manning, C., Robinson, F., & Davey, R. (2026). The Schoolyard Greenprint. Volume 1: Overview. Health Research Institute, University of Canberra.

Leigh, G., Richardson, H., Manning, C., Robinson, F., & Davey, R. (2026). The Schoolyard Greenprint. Volume 2: Schoolyard Typologies. Health Research Institute, University of Canberra.

Leigh, G., Richardson, H., Manning, C., Robinson, F., & Davey, R. (2026). The Schoolyard Greenprint. Volume 3: Design Guide. Health Research Institute, University of Canberra.

Leigh, G., Richardson, H., Manning, C., Robinson, F., & Davey, R. (2026). The Schoolyard Greenprint. Volume 4: Engagement Toolkit. Health Research Institute, University of Canberra.

University of Canberra. (July, 2026). The Schoolyard Greenprint Research Reports. https://www.canberra.edu.au/research/centres/hri/research-projects/the-schoolyard-greenprint/research-reports