Mama Beech

As leaders, we spend a lot of time anticipating and facilitating the area and the activities. We react to the children's curiosity, investigation, and interests. We encourage them to do a little extra, explore a little further, and discover a little more. We respond to requests and questions, discuss possibilities, introduce ideas and information, and we follow the lead of the children. On bad days we are patrolling and constantly reminding children to stay safe, or be kind, or to adhere to boundaries. Those days are not frequent, but children will always bring class disagreements and personal feelings to basecamp, and even if it's resolved before they arrive, they cannot always shake off the negative hangover from it. Occasionally a session can struggle to get past playground squabbles no matter what space, communication, or support the adults offer. On good days we move from group to group, individual to couple, observing what they are doing, ensuring they are safe, and aimin...

Is it me or has this term had at least 47 weeks in it so far? The school holidays are on an ever-present horizon that never seems to get closer! Having said that these last two weeks will now fly by leaving a feeling of incomplete…everything! The second year interrupted by Covid is ever-so-slowly heading to a close, and somehow, we have made it through again ensuring ALL the children at school get to participate in Forest School. It has been a logistical challenge, timetables have been rewritten... regularly! Staggered starts to the school day, break times altered, and lunchtimes stretched, have meant adaptations to timings for everything. Including the entire school in Forest School every week has meant squeezing in 14 sessions into these rearranged days... Weirdly, the morning’s feel short with at least 2 sessions in, the afternoons often feel longer, yet with only one session, the collective week can drag with me wondering when the weekend is coming, while at the same time mentally ...

You cannot please all of the children all of the time. Or at least that is how it seems. Someone will always want to be vocal when it's too wet to climb trees, or when the mud slick is out of bounds, or when we can't go to the pond - or because we are AT the pond!  This week we went to the Wildlife Garden, a hedged in, gated area, where we have a good size pond. The children love pond dipping, I cart along a lot of the usual activities, and they get to explore a different small section of woods.  This was greeted by most as a happy surprise. Eager children wanted to get straight into pond dipping, and many spent the entire session kneeling by the water. The trees here are young and vying for sunlight. They are tall and skinny and offer a lot of shade, which frankly for the first half of the week was a blessing. It does mean that none are suitable for climbing, a fact that drew groans from a few.  I explained we were here for the pond, we had climbable trees last week, and...