Singapore Brings Preschool Learning Outdoors
As Singapore’s highly urbanized environment and increasing digitalization cause young children to become disconnected from nature and confined to indoor spaces, educators are taking action to bring a permanent solution to this situation. KiddiWinkie Schoolhouse, one of the pioneering institutions in early childhood education, has launched an initiative providing up to 90 minutes of free outdoor play for preschool-aged children every school day, tripling the national standards.
According to statistics, one in five parents in Singapore states that their child spends less than an hour outdoors on weekends. Similarly, a 2025 study in the UK shows that more than a third of children do not play outdoors at all on school days. Current national regulations in Singapore require full-day preschools to provide children with at least 30 minutes of outdoor time per day. KiddiWinkie, which is part of the Babilou Family group’s "Sustainable Education" framework, creates a remarkable difference in its educational model by increasing this time to 90 minutes a day.
Current academic research shows that the human brain forms new connections at an extraordinary speed during the first years of life. Stepping out of indoor spaces and interacting with nature during early childhood directly improves children’s higher-level mental functions, such as working memory, attention span, and cognitive flexibility.