The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
It's been half term week.
Five days of catching up with friends and catching up on chores!
It was also an opportunity to contemplate Term 6, the final run up to the end of the school year.
It's a hectic time in the school calendar. Trips, plays, report writing. The winding down of a years work and the beginnings of prepping for next year. Plus the goodbyes to those moving on to new schools. Year 6 will head off to Secondary School having had almost 4 years of Forest School, and for the most part, that was weekly!
Any and all benefits of the last few years are anecdotal, It's difficult to 'prove' the worth of any extra curricular education. We don't provide sessions for one year group class and not the other, allowing a neutral sample! We can only build on what the children say and the observations by ourselves and their teachers, and we ALL continue to see it as a positive influence on children's wellbeing and learning.
I have rambled on in the past about how and why taking the walls away is so powerful in making learning meaningful. I've also waved the flag for Risky Play and all it teaches. I will also, of course, forever support the growth of Forest School.
I will always champion an independent venture that parents and children sign up for, but my biggest wish would be to see Forest School in every school, offering it's support to every child.
They offer and support very different things.
Like all aspects of education there's the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!
From full Forest School sessions delivering children the skills required to be good learners, to fair weather wanderings with generic worksheets aimed at a different environment to the one theyre in! To do either well it needs CPD and support from School Leadership.
This week however, the UGLY hit full force.
My fellow Forest School Leader popped into school to water seedlings. One of the things we do as FSLs is take small nurture groups, and Ms Tuff is a the Queen of all things Green! She will deny that, but her willingness to give growing ANYTHING a go and her dedication to giving it the best chance of survival is evident in her half term foray into the school grounds!
She was mortified to find the projects vandalised.
This does indeed feel like a personal attack. Not on the school, not even on the staff, but on the children. This does indeed destroy lumps of the school budget - which we all know is stretched to begin with - but it also wipes out HOURS of children's work.
Projects in which children have invested time, sometimes their own time, their energy and their interest. They were engaged in the activity, were being patient and caring, and were looking forward to the rewards of growing food and flowers...
Through small garden groups children who struggle in the classroom found an outlet for their energy, but also a way to focus it.
It supported their learning, self confidence, and wellbeing. It improved their attitude to school, and strengthened their relationships with peers, and staff.
The deliberate actions of a few have damaged their efforts.
The Queen of Green has taken what she could salvage home with her and set up an ICU for plants. While a insignificant minority of the local community were happy to wreck the labours of Ms Tuff and the children we work with, the majority of the local community have come together to offer hugs, help, repairs, replacements, condolences, and shared anger.
As Ms Tuff says:
We will build (and plant) again.
The wider Outdoor Education Community also rallied with welcome words of support and offers of help, which are much appreciated.
So the final Term of the year dawns on Monday with promises of Summer fun, final Forest School celebrations with a pending year 7, more training, an open day, and, hopefully, an opportunity to build back the polytunnel, the plant stocks, and the motivation and self esteem of the children.
Wish us luck.
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