BBC News reports details the Nature Friendly School scheme which aims to make schools grounds greener and wilder and is a partnership between The Wildlife Trusts, YoungMinds and other organisations.

The project trains teachers to deliver outdoor classes, inspiring their pupils to learn more about environmental challenges and the natural world, and encouraging teamwork, social skills, confidence and creativity.

Nature Friendly Schools has already worked with 90 schools in areas with high levels of social deprivation, giving thousands of pupils the opportunity to learn and play in nature. The leaders hope to expand the programme this year to help children find solace in nature after the hardships of lockdowns.  

The Telegraph reports the Duchess of Cambridge has urged families to escape the on-screen visuals of Instagram to make time to “sit and feel” the natural world. The Duchess, who showed a group of schoolchildren around her Chelsea Flower Show “Back to Nature” garden, said she considered it ” really important the kids start to understand nature, and care for it, so they can protect it as well”.

She had brought her own three children along to the garden to show them the moss, pine cones and sticks they had collected from the Norfolk countryside to help her, letting them play on a rope swing and paddle in the stream.