Dr Roger Hopper designed and first used the concepts of the NOLA
award while working at a Pupil Referral Unit (Horizons, 2008). The
NOLA award is based upon long standing research into Outdoor
learning’s impact on personal development and continued to
be developed by trialling it in practice within a Special Needs
School (Horizon, 2011). One of the main aims of the NOLA award is
to capture and celebrate the personal and social change created by
outdoor learning, in a measurable manner. The desire to quantify a
primarily qualitative change was born out of countless times of
not being able to evidence developments. In comparison to
mainstream curricula Outdoor learning therefore appeared
ineffective.
The current format of the NOLA award and resources, were developed
by Dr Hopper, with support from Heatree Activity Centre. A
national steering group was formed in 2014 to further the
direction of the award and a link with IOL created which has led
to NOLA being available as a FREE resource from 2018 for all
involved in outdoor learning.