Intentions not Resolutions

Happy New Year All!

A New Year is always a good time for change. Like a new School Year, or New Term, Birthdays, starting a new job, moving house, or any other time that feels like a perfect reason to make a change.

In Forest School every day feels like a new start! Different weather, different seasons, different groups... nothing ever feels routine. It's what makes planning almost pointless and guarantees boredom is rare! 

Every session I run has a 'plan', but no details. Activities I aim to have available, adaptable to weather and abilities, and open-ended to allow the children to follow their own learning, makes what I put on paper simply a guideline! 

This year will be no different. I have a bank of ideas in my head and in the laptop that I can draw on to offer activities. There is no point in resolving OR intending any different!

Personally, I've never made any resolutions, life gets in the way and makes them difficult if not impossible, but occasionally I use the turning of the year to review my intentions.

The ongoing intentions for Forest School are three-fold:

1️⃣ Is to offer an ever widening range of experiences for the classes who come outside to participate.

2️⃣ Is to offer sessions to the local community as much as we can.

3️⃣ Is to support more settings and schools in implementing Forest School themselves, through taster sessions and facilitating Forest School Training.

We have succeeded in this over the last couple of years and have no plans to stop. In fact we'd like to extend it.

Our own sessions continue to offer opportunities for children to interact with nature, learn skills, and devise their own games, activities, and learning. 

This Term my colleague is doing this by allowing those who choose to to write/draw an idea on a tag and hang it on an old Christmas tree. Experience tells us there will be requests for a swimming pool and zip line into the village (that will sadly be disappointed!) But, more importantly, a few ideas that will be a foundation on which to build new resources, spaces, and activities. 

🌱 This is one way we try to keep all learning Child Led and to encourage children to take ownership of their learning. 

🌿 Another, is to ask at the end of a session what the children would like from the next session. This is reinforced by a reminder at the start of each which can be built on or ignored.

🌾 The children always have free choice of what to explore, and as adults we oversee for safety, and are available to make subtle observations and suggestions to support the children's plans and progression.

🌳 Finally, we are open to the children's suggestions, to their requests mid session, and their deviation from whatever our intention for the activity was.

Our 'intentions' are not personal but collective. Every session is a new start if required, although each will also build on to previous investigations, experiences, and knowledge.

If we 'resolve' to do something it feels set, non negotiable, and not achieving it feels like a failure.

Intentions are more flexible, open to interpretation and collaboration, and may actually never reach completion! 

Is there a point where we feel the children have nothing else to discover? To explore? To devise?

Learning is life long. As practitioners we are forever coming across new information, whether it's from CPD, hobbies, or the children themselves. 

I'm not sure I can 'resolve' to offer more, be better, or change anything. But I can 'intend' to work with colleagues and children to make changes they want to test out, support opportunities they want to explore, and facilitate their independent learning.

So 2024 arrived with no New Years Resolutions shackled to it.

But the New Term is full of intentions to continue the evolution of Forest School at Chartham.

Let's hope they grow strong!