Mama Beech

At the risk of sounding even older than I actually am "We have way more storms than we uses to"! Which may or may not be statistically true, but definitely a lot more have impacted our Forest School since 2021 than before. (Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning!) Often, these charge in overnight or at weekends leaving me tip-toeing onto site to see what damage has been done. Frequently they gather pace at 4pm leaving the school day clear for sessions, and sometimes, the gods are smiling and they blow themselves out in the morning before the first class is due on site! They always make their mark though. Torn parachutes, flapping tarps, tree debris everywhere, litter blown in, on one occasion a 6ft trampolines rolling across the school. Field... There's the risk assessment required to ensure the site is fit for use, and damage to manage or remove. We're never totally unscathed! Sitting on a plateau at the edge of the South Downs doesn't help. The wind rush...

Forest School comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. In the way that schools can have varying facilities, equipment, departments, grounds, class sizes, staffing, and buildings, basecamp can be centred at the heart of all sorts of Forest Schools. We have 3 sites on our school grounds. Each lends itself to different aspects of Forest School.  The Wildlife Garden has old and new trees, a large pond, and space for planting to attract all kinds of British Wildlife. There's a hidden mud kitchen and a 'secret' woodland and space for activities to take place. Under the Trees is amongst a mature woodland strip, where there are plenty of boughs strong enough to hold up swings and tyres. Their trunks support slack lines and provide space to climb. We have old bricks and a long mud kitchen to explore. The Copse is a cluster of trees that hides basecamp beautifully. There are a few child-designed structures around it and access to a long strip of woodland. It has swings, den spaces, tr...

Thursday means the 'older' children, 8+, which always alters the pace. The smaller children are definitely doers but they flit around trying out everything and love exploring the space. The ferns form walls and every path is unknown. From their perspective the clearings are huge, the bushes dense, the trees tower, and Forest School is vast!  The older children are not as focused on the area as an entity in itself. They appreciate what it supplies; spaces for dens, trees to support hammocks, ropes to swing from, places to hide... They are mostly interested in what activities they can do. Some of these are the same as the younger group investigated. Role play, story telling, swinging, climbing, balancing, crafts, and tool work.  There were subtle changes in challenge and the potential product. Additionally, they also got to try fire starting, and making pop corn. These children had a little more freedom in the woods, they knew the boundaries and were able to explore it a little ...

Many Forest School sessions run within Primary Schools. Trying to keep to the ethos of the pedagogy we know and love while influenced or even pressured, towards doing something very different is not always easy. For those of us who trained while working in education, a career of providing proof of learning is inbuilt. There's an entire philosophical PHD somewhere in the question of whether learning happens without proof! We reduce it down to tick charts, numbers, and letters, and load it as data onto reports and software. Often 'proof' becomes a product, something 'to take home', something tangible that stands solid as evidence of achievement. At Chartham, we don't use Forest School as an extension of what is happening inside. We may offer activities to support what's happening in their themes and topics, and the children themselves frequently bring their new knowledge outdoors and ask questions, act it out, and explore it in a different way. What happens in...

One of the more difficult aspects of Forest School for most people to come to terms with is the 'Child Led' ethos. School Leaders, parents, any kind of inspector, and even the curious public often question it. Many of us have backgrounds in education before we train to deliver Forest School, so we are already well versed in curriculum areas, learning intentions, and engaging activities... all of which have planned outcomes. To then set children free to explore on their own requires an entire reset on how you've been facilitating learning and what you think it looks like. Being open to this change doesn't mean you don't have to adapt. I assume anyone training is already interested in a different way of helping children explore and understand the world around them. But whether it's a recent grounding in (or several years/decades of) data input via a spreadsheet, it frequently leads to a kind of hybrid approach to planning and assessment for Forest School Sessions...

On rare occasions, we need to cover a Forest School session INSIDE. It may be because the weather prevents a session, it may be a staffing issue, it may be an introduction for children who will find the outdoors challenging, but whatever causes it, there are times when setting up activities in a classroom is suddenly needed. I've said before that I have a large IKEA blue bag that I keep certain activities in, these are not necessarily ones I can/will use in Forest School, like jigsaw puzzles, colouring, cutting out, etc. It's fairly quick to add some of the nature table items, bug ID, and bird guides, etc. into the bag to make what is basically 'nature learning' feel a little like Indoor Forest School! One week in December started with me under the duvet with a fever and headache, and a PCR test pending. School canceled Forest School because waiting each day to decide what the following day's timetable would be was too hectic. So once back in on the Wednesday indoor...