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...

A campfire is a treat at Chartham.  We don't have one every session even when the weather is cold. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being ratios! when we have a campfire I cannot leave the fire pit area, which has at times meant one TA left to supervise 20+ children! Then there's the time constraint. Often I have two classes in a morning, each session lasting approximately 60 minutes. This may mean keeping a fire going constantly as dampening it down after session one will make setting one for session two difficult! There is also the cost. With 16 classes a week we would need to buy in a minimum of £10 of logs a week, plus kindling... it adds up quickly. Yes, we have some trees and some woodland, but not enough to sustain campfires all week, all term, all year. Importantly, there are other considerations. To the environment for one, and to the participants also. There is a lot of study surrounding the negative effects of smoke inhalation. This US article by Kurt R...

There is an unwritten yet universal law that states if it's Forest School Celebration Week, and four days of campfires to burn, the hottest day of the year so far will dawn! The children obviously don't mind, but as the Forest School Leader cannot move too far from the fire, adults have the fun of Eau De Bonfire on all clothing and hair as well as the sensation that human melting is actually possible! Planning this week is fairly easy - prepping it takes a little effort. As we are currently still doing shorter sessions for 14 classes ensuring I am prepared for a 4-day campfire plus treats tends to involve a full car boot and a bit of heavy lifting! Although we DO have trees, and a small amount of woodland we don't have anywhere near the natural resources on-site to fuel a fire from 9 till 3 from Monday to Thursday! So we bring in kindling and firewood. Then there are the treats. The consensus amongst the children is 'Marshmallows please!", so we need 14 bags of tho...

Dear Santa, for Christmas please may I have a mini JCB digger because my back, hands, and for some reason my elbows, hurt from digging holes to plant Fruit Trees in!  And if Santa can throw in some new trowels and garden forks it would be much appreciated as our rocky ground has literally broken 5 tools this month! Our site is more flint than soil it seems, so even with the help of the children it's a nigh on impossible task!  Having spent most of this term planting 400 Woodland Trust Trees you'd imagine we were at least used to forging these holes in our challenging site! However the fruit trees are a lot bigger 'baby trees' and need substantial space to bed in. As it is we're running out of Term and they need to be settled into their spaces before school closes till January. In between digging for England there was the small matter of Forest School Celebration Week. We always end the term with a week of campfires and treats. This Term it celebrates the previous ex...

This week Christmas has arrived at basecamp! The 400 trees are in the frosty ground, the top of the lopped holly bush is our festive decoration, Reception Classes had a story around the campfire, and next week's celebration for the end of term is almost ready to roll! Last week I pointed out the pitfalls of Forest School 'Lite' , short sessions of outside learning in that it foregoes some of the routine and reduces the activities available. It was, and still is, a great way to get classes outside, and children react well to it, but this week threw up the other difficulty - over use!  The soil is eroding around basecamp as foot fall has gone from 2 or 3 classes a week to 16, the mud can be fun, but also needs managing. This has a knock on effect for the school cleaners when classes traipse endless mud back into the building! This was not helped by me allowing Year 6 to mud slide along the ground! They did get very muddy and very wet and very cold. We have in the past, and on...

We were a bit sad to miss actual Forest School Day on the 9th of October but Friday is the only day Forest School doesn't run sessions! So last week we continued with our ongoing provision through rain and shine and set aside this week as a celebration of the end of term. Autumn is really bursting forth, the colours are glowing, there's a nip in the air, and the mornings are oh so late starting! In fact, down a dark, dark lane there's a dark, dark Village... In the dark, dark Village there's a dark, dark Street... In the dark, dark Street there's a dark, dark School... In the dark, dark School there's a dark dark Forest School... In the dark dark Forest School there's a dark, dark Basecamp... And that dark, dark Basecamp is waiting... Today is the end of Term 1 in Kent, the end of half term for many, and the constant turn seasons brings Forest School into full Autumn. For seven weeks all of KS1 and KS2 have been coming outside once a week for a reduced Fores...