Cookie preferences

HundrED uses necessary cookies that are essential to use the service and to provide a better user experience. Read more about our cookies.
Accept cookies
search
clear

EPIC - Explore- Play-Innovate Create

place Canada

EPIC allows students and staff through play and discovery learning.

EPIC is a full school initiative. By being inclusionary and offering students a choice in finding their passions we have evidence that students and staff can become part of a culture of active learning through play and discovery learning which in turn lowers their anxiety towards school. We also take our kids outside to discover their passion for learning.

Shortlisted
play_arrow

Overview

HundrED shortlisted this innovation

HundrED has shortlisted this innovation to one of its innovation collections. The information on this page has been checked by HundrED.

Web presence

2022

Established

600

Children

1

Countries
Target group
Students lower
Updated
April 2024
We know that students learn through a variety of approaches, thus we want our students to have intellectually, socially and physically engaging active learning activities. Our goal is to establish a framework (EPIC) in which we incorporate purposeful and worthwhile opportunities for students to self-select the activities that meet their developmental needs and curiosity.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

Hanwell Park Academy is a new school located alongside a nature park trail system widely used by the public. The paths to and from the nature park are interconnected with the school and are accessible for all (including wheelchair accessibility). We use the outdoors and student choice to help curb student anxiety and to promote active learning. Thus, we are taking advantage of our natural setting.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

EPIC Explore – Play- Innovate – Create, is a full school initiative. All students and staff from K- 8 will participate. By being inclusionary and offering students a choice in finding their passions we have found an established a culture of active learning through play and discovery learning outside. Each grade level has a developmentally appropriate design. For example, k-2 do a minimum of an hour of Exploratory play a week – with an end goal of demonstrating something they created during the exploration time. Whereas, the older grades (4-8) learn to self-select a variety of mostly out door play based activities. Each EPIC runs 4 to 5 weeks, one/two hour a week 6 times a year with staff and students learning through play beyond the scheduled EPICs. The choices of activities will include learning to play pickle-ball, art on the trails, geo-caching, beautifying the trails, frisbee golf, learning to make and edit movies showcasing our trails...etc

How has it been spreading?

We were part of the Canadian Playful Schools Network (a project through the LEGO foundation and the University of Ottawa) and we shared our EPIC with over 30 other schools from across Canada. In our local area - several other schools have copied a variation of our EPIC that would fit their local circumstances. We have partnered with our school district to help host other school administrators to view our EPIC in action.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

If any school or district would like to try this approach, we would be happy to provide all the resources we have created. But first, a school needs to have a willing staff and to design EPIC to fit their needs. We are taking full advantage of being so close to nature. Whereas, one of our partners (an inner city school) is taking advantage of their students able to walk to museums/ science center

Implementation steps

EPIC - EXPLORE - PLAY - INNOVATE - CREATE
Step 1 - Identify staff readiness to help design a multi-age - cross-curricular block of time
Step 2 - What are your school needs? For example - an inner city school needed to build better relationships with its downtown neighbours. We built our EPIC to lower student anxiety by having them play outdoors
Step 3- Work with the community to help provide options for the students - for geo-caching we have a local group work with our kids.
Step - Create a menu of EPICs and have the students select.

Spread of the innovation

loading map...