Good idea, the sun would be a bit better placed a bit more as a backlight, but the tones are nice . By turning slightly you would lose the hot spot on the little boy's face by moving it to become a hairlight. you have nice ideas, the technical stuff will come with practice (I shoot over 200,000 photos a year and I still miss stuff)
I like this one little better, I think if you would of moved a little further camera right and had backlight from the sun, and flash for the face, it might of improved it just a little more. Don't settle for one angle, move and bracket your shots. The light can change moods and highlights in the shot just by moving a few inches left or right. Now remember all this with exposure time, aperature, fill flash, reflector, and millions of other things that you will forget! But most importantly,HAVE FUN!!!!