Mama Beech

That's it! Forest School sessions ended this week. Another academic year is over & out for us.  The children and staff are still in for a few days, but now is our time for planning next year, catching up on admin, a few 'gardening' duties, maintenance, repair, and an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved and how we plan to build on it. As usual the last week of term was a Celebration Week to round off 6 weeks of sessions. Usually this requires a campfire, 400 marshmallows to toast, gallons of hot chocolate, half the biscuit aisle from the supermarket, and the delicate process of 'make your own' marshmallow sandwich task for all classes! This time, it did not.  With the heat in South East England not only being high (for us!) and hotter predicted, we made the decision not to have campfires based on a number of factors: It is definitely hot enough! We do not to be warmed up any further. I wanted basecamp to be a shaded respite from the heat. Lack of rain...

This month's weather has been the kind I like, as long as I don't have to work! So being a term time Forest School has it's benefits because I can kick back and enjoy the heat!  The sun has been out almost permanently, and on the rare occasion when cloud cover has has arrived, the temperature has dipped - just a little. Storms have been promised, and have raged around the country, in places causing havoc, but no rain evident for Mama Beech ... yet. This is the problem with term time only Forest School: The constant wondering if the newly planted willow is curling up and dying, if the pond is ridiculously low, or if the Woodland Trust baby trees are coping with the heat... Next week I will have the opportunity to go in and check everything over. I live 50 miles away from the site so I have no idea what I will find! This may well be a damage control visit rather than any kind of development planning! And if the storms come between now and then the ravages of a deluge or fou...