More than 800 schools, so far in 2017, are taking over 130,000 children outdoors in more than 40 countries to celebrate outdoor learning and play.

There’s a way for everyone to get involved. Teachers can take classes outdoors on Thursday 18 May, parents can encourage their child’s school to get involved, and everyone can help promote the campaign by sharing information about it with colleagues and friends!

You may have noticed on social media that around the world the Empty Classroom Day campaign is called ‘Outdoor Classroom Day’. Following long deliberations, the Advisory Board for the campaign, including Eco-Schools England and Project Dirt, have decided to merge the two names. The campaign is identical — we are all committed to working with schools to:

Celebrate outdoor learning and play
Inspire schools everywhere to make outdoor learning and play part of EVERY day!

This name change will simply help us reach more schools, more children and more communities, using less time (and resources) as we focus on reaching out to teachers across the world, as well as across the UK and Ireland.

Empty Classroom Day has a rich history that you can read more about here. The campaign went global last year as a partnership led by the UK based Project Dirt and powered by Unilever’s Dirt is Good. In 2016, almost half a million children got outdoors across 52 countries as part of the two campaigns!

The practical bits

This year, Project Dirt will continue the work of LSSF, LEEF and Eco-Schools England by leading the UK and Ireland campaign, with a coalition of partners from the five nations. We’ll let you know as we are joined by other new partners over the next few weeks.

Some changes have been made to the campaign website and resources to reflect the campaign name change. Please take a look around and get in touch if you have any questions.

Apart from that, everything is the same. By getting involved this year, not only will you be joining the Outdoor Classroom Day community to support children to get outdoors to play and learn, but you will also be part of a truly global movement to make outdoor learning and play part of every day for children around the world.

Sign up to get involved and follow us on Twitter,and Facebook and join the Outdoor Classroom Day conversation