Mama Beech

Possibly due to a background in Early Years Education, I have always championed outdoor learning. There is nothing you can teach inside that can't be moved outside. Even if it is simply taking clipboards onto a patc h of grass and delivering the lesson that would have been in a classroom to pupils in the open air. For instance, a dapting your Autumn story-writing to include a walk in the woods so children HEAR the crunch of leaves, SEE the Autumn colours, SMELL the rain and mulch, TOUCH the shiny conkers, FEEL the breeze, WATCH their misted breath.... before asking them to write descriptive sentences, links indoor learning to outdoor.  Growing food and plant life cycles are so much easier to teach, and to understand, when it's actually happening! Basing a topic around a pond on school grounds, or local to the building, with daily visits and monitoring of wildlife, recording of changes, writing of poems, drawing from observation... is reliant on the outdoors Whether inc...

Week 1 getting all 12 'bubbles' outside for a reduced form of Forest School was interesting! We are abiding by our own risk assessment and amended rules and procedure as we go. No bubble has more than 15 pupils in and as every school is finding there are hidden difficulties and sudden incidents that make implementing Social Distancing INSIDE the building difficult at times. OUTSIDE I can confirm it is just as fraught! The space is there for them to move around in, there are multiple trees offering climbing opportunities, but children do like to form groups and interact. Trying to stop them is to go against human nature and requires a lot of discussion, reminding, nagging.... I've said before that part of our assessment is the fact that Covid-19 spreads slower outside. The wind and air circulates the virus quickly and UV light from the sun helps destroy it, so based on the current scientific advice, a 9 acre space with sky for a ceiling and no obvious walls is probably t...

Mama Beech sits on the edge of a Forest School site overlooking the copse that hides basecamp. There's a strip of woodland the children explore, a field of space to run, and the huge tree shields the Fairy Glen quiet space. This site is on school grounds, and across the year as many classes as possible in a two-form Primary take part in full 2 hour FS Sessions... Until Lockdown interrupted and Coronavirus changed the rules. Emerging back into school life routines have changed, lessons have altered, classes are no longer the same size, or pupils, and restrictions due to social distancing and cross contamination make even the idea of Forest School Sessions as I know them fraught. So it's time to adapt. We've made the decision that all the children need as much outdoor time as possible. This stems from some children having been cooped up during the lockdown period and needing the space and freedom to move, the assertion that it's harder to catch Covid-19 outside (b...

I refuse to gleefully announce that 'schools are open' because many including mine never closed. The children who attended had opportunities for both Forest School and other forms of Outdoor Learning throughout. It was possibly the only time these children would've had the chance to explore in such a wide aged ranged group, and their interactions were very positive But now they are back in school with a new timetable and a new agenda and a new way of working and learning and living day-to-day Forest School is adapting as it goes, and a lot of what we normally do has either ceased or is being questioned Meeting the 6 core principles of Quality  Forest School (as listed on the Forest School Association website) may be difficult Quality Forest School is long enough Quality Forest School is   risky enough/safe enough Quality Forest School promotes holistic development Quality Forest School is  natural enough Quality Forest School has learner led outcomes Qu...