The ‘Children’s People and Nature Survey’ provides information on how children and young people experience and think about the natural environment. It is run twice each year, once in term time and once in holiday time. Key findings from August and September/October (Waves 3 and 4) were published by Natural England on 30 November. It reports on two Waves each year alongside previous Waves, to build a picture of any trends over time. More detailed analysis of the data is due to be completed following this release.
Responses were collected from 2,000 children and young people aged 8-to-15 between the 12 and 26 August 2022 (during the school holidays) and 2,003 between the 21 September and 10 October 2022 (during term-time). Some headline findings from Waves 3 and 4 are summarised below:
- When children are at school, most are spending some time outside. 85% of children and young people said they had spent time outside at school most or every day in the past week (2% said they never did this). When asked about how often they had done activities or lessons outside that were not PE, 23% said most or every day. This is a reduction from 2021 when 30% children said they had.
- Children and young people are concerned about the environment and are taking actions to try and look after it. 83% of children and young people in this survey agreed both that looking after the environment was important to them and that they wanted to do more to look after the environment. Over half of children reported recycling (75%), turning off taps (65%) and lights (63%), and picking up litter (58%) to look after the environment.
- Children tended to show high connection to and enjoyment of nature, although responses varied. From seven pictures which depicted different levels of closeness to nature, 47% of children and young people chose ones showing high connection to nature to describe themselves. 87% of children and young people agreed that being in nature made them very happy.
- Although children and young people may not have increased overall time spent outdoors between 2021 and 2022, they are visiting a greater variety or range of places. Gardens (72%), parks/playing fields/playgrounds (64%) and grassy areas in the streets nearby (46%) were most often visited by children and young people in the last week.
- New insights show how children and young people rate the quality of their local natural environments. Using questions co-developed with children and young people, this year’s survey shows children’s ratings of their local natural spaces based on: 1) the natural environment, 2) spaces to do the things they want, 3) the human/built environment, 4) how they feel in these spaces, and 5) how accessible they are.
More information on the report can be found on the Gov.UK website.
Download the survey infographic.
