HELLO!

The very Mediterranean-looking Scilly Isles are confined to the summer and Term 1 of the 2022/2023 School Year begins!

(Sorry - I just needed one last look!)

It will be a bit of a rollercoaster as we establish a whole new way of delivering sessions, build what is now a Forest School Team, and continue to develop outdoor learning opportunities at Chartham Primary School.

We are entering a difficult year for schools - and the population in general - in England. The predicted costs of energy is potentially crippling for many businesses, families, and educational settings. The effects will be financial but could also easily affect other aspects of school life. Heating and lighting are not something we have to budget for, but the impact of staffing and funding could yet reach outside into the woods.

Right now, we are forging forward as planned. There are now three fully qualified, enthusiastic, and skilled Forest School Leaders on staff and three very different areas of the school grounds set up to welcome pupils and deliver sessions.

The summer has wreaked havoc with the flora all around, but we are fighting back and aiming to make each area an amazing learning space for the children.

Getting everything ready is always ridiculously hard work. When a setting has a permanent basecamp area it becomes your 'classroom', but a huge one, with carpets that grow, walls that sprout, and doorways that vanish behind brambles and nettles. Here litter blows in, animals take up residence, and the weather batters everything! There is a lot of strenuous effort involved in not just making the space look appealing, but in making it safe and usable. It's a lot of work to do alone. Having three basecamps at least means one each for development, tidying, resourcing, building, and keeping safe, but with very little time allocated to that.

Also this year, our SEND satellite classes from a neighbouring school will be having their own Forest School Leader on our site. This means we are introducing an 'honorary team member' status and will be working together as four for the progress of Forest School, the good of the children, and everybody's sanity!

So we are stepping into the unknown all over again! On paper it all looks like a smooth plan to cover school PPA, ensure every class has a session every week, and slowly develop our provision more, while supporting the expansion of outdoor learning for all. 

We have plans, we have ideas - and oh, such ideas, the possibilities are endless - for what Forest School can deliver, how we can facilitate Outdoor Learning, which areas we can start to develop, and how to move what we have forward with further development. We have the space and the potential, we just need the TIME, as always, to help it along.

We all know that life, the universe, and Government directives are there to throw up difficulties! Illness, pandemics, weather, priorities, and funding are always waiting to pounce! So together we will try to ensure we can keep everything on as even a path as possible. 

Since 2020 the one constant across the school has been Forest School. Covid came, bubbles came (and went), staff came and went, classrooms were moved around, classes shuffled about, but Forest School came around once a week, outside, with the same rules, same routines, and same opportunities as the week before.

Child-led, independent, self-motivated exploring of the environment and children's own interests in all weathers, all seasons, no matter what.

Long may it continue.