Mama Beech

When I ordered the orchard trees from The Tree Council I did ponder my sanity! At that point there were over 400 trees on order from The Woodland Trust that we planned to plant as hedging. The idea was to create a kind of maze that would extend the copse that shelters Forest School Basecamp, a few apple and pear trees dotted at the edges could enhance it and we have the space... Time is always an issue. The pupils were a big part of planting the hedgerows that will be the maze walls, and whilst the experience is fantastic it doesn't actually speed up the process! Add to that the constant threat of bubbles or staff or the entire school having to isolate and there was a definite time pressure. But finally we reached the last week of this Term, Term 2, Winter Term, the end of 2020 at school.  Last week was full of celebrations of Forest School and some prep work for getting the saplings into the ground. This week was the graft! The 'Baby Hedge Trees' were just that, twig like

Dear Santa, for Christmas please may I have a mini JCB digger because my back, hands, and for some reason my elbows, hurt from digging holes to plant Fruit Trees in!  And if Santa can throw in some new trowels and garden forks it would be much appreciated as our rocky ground has literally broken 5 tools this month! Our site is more flint than soil it seems, so even with the help of the children it's a nigh on impossible task!  Having spent most of this term planting 400 Woodland Trust Trees you'd imagine we were at least used to forging these holes in our challenging site! However the fruit trees are a lot bigger 'baby trees' and need substantial space to bed in. As it is we're running out of Term and they need to be settled into their spaces before school closes till January. In between digging for England there was the small matter of Forest School Celebration Week. We always end the term with a week of campfires and treats. This Term it celebrates the previous ex

Anyone who has visited this blog before, followed Chartham Forest School on  twitter , or found posts on facebook will know that even though we offer Forest School sessions at our school, we are not exactly facilitating  Forest School   at the moment. After the first Lockdown in March this year we made a decision regarding reopening in  June  - that classes would be outside as much as possible.  This was driven by two main facts: T he first being that the outdoor environment was safer than the indoor environment. Inside we had to get to grips with one way systems and smaller classes, and children socially distanced in classrooms, alongside helping pupils learning at home. There was a lot to juggle.  The second being that different children had had different lockdown experiences. Some may have spent a lot of time in their garden, may have taken daily walks with their families,  may have had much more time to engage in self chosen activities and may have 'enjoyed' both their home

This week Christmas has arrived at basecamp! The 400 trees are in the frosty ground, the top of the lopped holly bush is our festive decoration, Reception Classes had a story around the campfire, and next week's celebration for the end of term is almost ready to roll! Last week I pointed out the pitfalls of Forest School 'Lite' , short sessions of outside learning in that it foregoes some of the routine and reduces the activities available. It was, and still is, a great way to get classes outside, and children react well to it, but this week threw up the other difficulty - over use!  The soil is eroding around basecamp as foot fall has gone from 2 or 3 classes a week to 16, the mud can be fun, but also needs managing. This has a knock on effect for the school cleaners when classes traipse endless mud back into the building! This was not helped by me allowing Year 6 to mud slide along the ground! They did get very muddy and very wet and very cold. We have in the past, and on