Mama Beech

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 ...

When you work in education you have two New Years.  Every September is a new start, a new intake, a new class, and a curriculum that's usually been tweaked if not reinvented! Then there's the turning of the year, when everyone around you is talking of resolutions, plans, aims, and goals for the coming twelve months, and we reflect on what has brought us to this point. When I took on the role of Forest School Leader at Chartham Primary, Forest School provision looked very different. I started in November 2019, so although this academic year is my fourth teaching year here, it's only three years since I began delivering Chartham Forest sessions - and a lot has happened!  My predecessor delivered sessions three afternoons a week, to half-classes of fifteen x KS2 pupils. By the start of this academic year, we had three fully qualified FSLs covering fourteen full classes from eyfs to Year 6!  Like all schools, we constantly aim to improve teaching, so our provision has evolved...

Since I started leading Forest School at Chartham sessions have changed, altered, evolved, and changed again! Like everything in education, there are a lot of influences that require addressing, working with, working around, and encompassing.  What began as two or three afternoons a week with half a class became rapid 80-minute sessions with 16 bubble classes across 4 days when covid first hit! A School that had traditionally reserved Forest School for KS2 PPA sessions, and split the class between on-site sessions and swimming off-site, suddenly had full classes, all year groups and all Key Stages engaging weekly. The move back into some semblance of normal is ongoing, but we tried hard to stick to providing FS for all classes until late last year. The compromise was shorter sessions, which did impact the quality of activities but allowed the whole school to take part for well-being. In November we moved to longer sessions, with classes alternating each term/half term with their y...

Change is one of those words that strikes terror into many a heart. We all know change can be good. We've all experienced change being bad. Change for change's sake is often just frustrating... and is the only guarantee we have in education! Covid brought change. We all suddenly had to do things differently, alter our practice, step out of our comfort zones and rearrange our lives. As a school that continued Forest School throughout the last 18 months, there was a lot to navigate to ensure we could provide meaningful sessions safely, and in our case, we extended Forest School to encompass all children weekly instead of weaving it into the curriculum on and off throughout the year. This was very successful in helping to keep a balance of wellbeing in these ongoing crazy times! It was also a crash course for all-year groups on what Forest School could be. Adults started to see how to use it to enhance what goes on inside, and the pupils began to understand responsibility and inde...