What is Forest School?
At our school each class has regular Forest School sessions throughout the week on either a Tuesday or Friday afternoon. We use our grounds and weather permitting, our local area.
Forest School is a child-centred inspirational learning process, that offers opportunities for holistic growth through regular sessions. It is a long-term program that supports play, exploration and supported risk taking. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.
What is Forest School? (In a 5 minute nutshell)
Forest School has a developmental ethos shared by thousands of trained practitioners around the world, who are constantly developing their learning styles and skills to support new and imaginative learners. Its roots reach back to the open-air culture, friluftsliv, or free air life, seen as a way of life in Scandinavia where Forest School began. It arrived in the UK in 1993 and has grown from strength to strength since then.
The process helps and facilitates more than knowledge-gathering, it helps learners develop socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually. It creates a safe, non-judgemental nurturing environment for learners to try stuff out and take risks. Forest School inspires a deep and meaningful connection to the world and an understanding of how a learner fits within it. Our approach to risk means that learners constantly expand on their abilities by solving real-world issues, building self-belief and resilience. We believe that risk is more than just potential for physical harm, but a more holistic thing, there are risks in everything we do, and we grow by overcoming them. Forest School therefore, helps participants to become, healthy, resilient, creative and independent learners.
There is lots of research out there to support the outcomes of Forest School, but we know that it isn’t just the educational outcomes and research that matter, our learners and leaders love it too!
Our Forest School promotes
- Confidence: children having the freedom, time and space to learn and demonstrate independence
- Social skills: children gain increased awareness of the consequences of their actions on peers through team activities such as sharing tools and participating in play
- Communication: language development is prompted by the children’s sensory experiences
- Motivation: the woodland tends to fascinate the children and they developed a keenness to participate and the ability to concentrate over longer periods of time
- Physical skills: improvements are characterised by the development of physical stamina and gross and fine motor skills
- Knowledge and understanding: children develop an interest in the natural surroundings and respect for the environment
All children in school will undertaken Forest School sessions throughout the year within our school grounds.
At our school we work very closely with Charlotte and Frankie Moss to Canopy | Forest School | Nottinghamshire, UK
A ‘typical’ Forest School session…
Despite a wet start—particularly for me setting up, we ended up having a fantastic time, especially with all the water play! The kids had a blast collecting water in watering cans and buckets, particularly from the tarpaulins.
We kicked things off in the fire circle with the story of The Magic Paintbrush, accompanied by warm juice and a biscuit. The children eagerly shared their imaginative ideas about what they would create if they had a magic paintbrush.
We also talked about the green code and the activities we had planned for the day, which included painting the clay pots that the children crafted last week. These will be ready for filling with candle wax next week. We understand that some of you may not be here, so we will ensure that those pieces are left at the school reception for pickup after the half term break.
Today was all about autumn, and we focused on pumpkins! The children had the chance to hammer golf tees into the pumpkins, learning how to do it safely. Next week, we plan to crack open the pumpkins in the mud kitchen and hopefully whip up some delightful autumn concoctions.
The ninja line was a big hit today, receiving so much love that we had to tighten it twice! The kids absolutely adore it, as it’s great for their physical development and balance. We also had a cozy little group gather in the hammocks on the playground, enjoying some much-needed downtime while socialising together.
Everyone had a chance to toast on the fire today, and we enjoyed madeleine cakes with biscuit spreads. The mud kitchen was bustling with activity, filled with bubbles as the children created frothy concoctions, including teas. They also took the opportunity to use bug hunters and magnifying glasses to search for wriggly worms that came out in the rain.
We wrapped up with a fun game of Mr. Crocodile on the field before discussing snacks for our final session