September Vibes

In my experience, September is a weird month.
It signals the start of a new school year and a new school term. For independent Forest Schools things change, as some children leave to start school, or move schools, Summer Camps are over and new children start, but the weeks and sessions continue as they have done all year round.

In School it's almost the same thing, a whole new EYFS, last year's Year 6's have moved on, new pupils dotted about across the school, a new timetable, some new staff, and an overgrown Forest School to tame.

September means change.

For those of us who have done little Forest School over the School Holidays, there is also the slow return to the normal routine. To a different pace of life to that of August. Whether you've had a busy Summer or a lazy Summer the alarms were switched off and choices of how to spend each day were almost endless!

Every year FSLs in schools everywhere have to adjust to having breakfast within 30 mins of getting up, to leaving the house dressed for Forest School, to learning lots of new names, to remembering which class is in which year group, and to tackling the changes to the site, with the children's help, but mainly before sessions start to ensure it is all safe.

Of course, much of this is what all School Staff have to tackle. New colleagues, new children, a different year group, a tweaked curriculum, changes in leadership, new priorities, new government guidance, and every year it takes a long time to catch up and feel the new status quo is understood. 

This happens every September. 

Yet every year we are never prepared for how young the classes seem to be, as if it's a surprise that Year 1 act like EYFS still, and are not the confident 6-year-olds we remember from July Year 1 classes!
We forget that over the six weeks away from school the experiences the children have had will have changed them a little (or a lot) and that getting back to 'normal' will take time - we don't even realise at this point that 'normal' has shifted and won't be the same 'normal' as last year!

September also brings huge change to Forest School because of the seasons. The temperature is dropping. The landscape around us is changing, influencing the activities and experiences we can provide. Our mindset and provision in the heat of July (and what heat there was!) has to squeal to a halt and alter to incorporate the approaching Autumn. The skills we teach the children start to focus on the changing seasons, from art in situ to correct clothing to how to make a fire. 

Time again has changed. The final term of a school year takes place straight after midsummer with light mornings and long evenings. September brings the equinox, and the signal that mornings are going to get darker and evenings shorter. I have never had a negative reaction to the seasonal changes, luckily I have no adjustment disorder to navigate, but I have an inner caveman who wants to sleep when it's dark! I'm sure I could actually hibernate given the chance. Soon I will need an alarm to be sure I am awake in time for work, despite months of naturally waking between 5 and 6 am. 

The sluggish start and tiredness of getting back into the swing of a new academic year, is here, and September reminds me that with overcast weather shielding the sun, setting up in dull mornings and packing away at dusk is a reality that will be here in a blink...

Despite all this, September is my favourite month! 

It is still warm. Sunrise and sunset are at times I can easily watch, from the kitchen window, or on a local walk after work. 

Said sun never rises too high in the sky, shadows are always long, the light it gives is always a-glow, and as the land below ripens into fields of gold, and trees tremble in shades of auburn, bronze, rust, and brass, the entire landscape is golden.

Moth caterpillars are often late to cocoon themselves in a chrysalis, insects are busy getting ready for winter, and the wildlife is out searching for food (and turning up on our wildlife cam!).
In preparation for longer nights, all of life gets busier all around us.

These changes are natural, routine, joyous to witness, amazing to harness, stunning to see, predictable, and annual - and yet, every September it takes an adjustment.
Perhaps because I am working throughout the slide from Autumn into Winter, and from Winter into Spring, and from Spring into Summer. Even with British weather being totally unpredictable and the temperature range of normal is permanently from snow to heatwave, coming back from the six-week Summer Holiday feels like an abrupt end to summer. Why my head is still in July sessions and time away from site, Mother nature has sneaked in and changed everything. 

Maybe it's because this happens alongside the changes to pupils and staffing that September feels like an event!

It's exciting, draining, fun, difficult, time-consuming, interesting, familiar, new, chaotic and cosy! The only constant in school is Forest School. Week in/week out, whatever year group, whoever the teacher is, whichever theme the class is focusing on, the one thing they can be sure of is time at basecamp. Over the last few years it's changed and changed again, but it's always been there. 

So we forge ahead. New skills to learn, old ones to revisit, and another season turns, to be explored and observed and investigated.

September is here. we're halfway through it. Totally immersed in the craziness it brings! New beginnings and the same ol', same ol' at the same time.

I'm going to enjoy it!