Mama Beech

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...

Well, where do I start? Forest School is Forest School. What makes it is the ethos, the teamwork, freedom, and the chance to be in nature. So much is exactly the same no matter the setting, children, and adults. At the same time, the setting, children, and adults do dictate what Forest School will be! This Forest School has a picturesque setting, but it's still in the heart of a natural forest, carpeted in pine needles, decorated in bracken, with an enviable blue view between the trees of sky and sea. Trees can be climbed, paths can be explored, logs can be overturned, and sticks can be ANYTHING! Dens for people were improved and built for toy creatures. Sticks were wands, and staffs, and styluses. A slack line and hammock encouraged balance and turntaking. A rope swing was adapted, and competent children helped the reticent climb on. A few bugs were found. A bit of running took place. Games were played... Smiles flashed, giggles rang out, new ideas added to the varied provision ad...

It's really hard to concisely explain the benefits of Forest School because there is no short answer.  We see children engage in a way they may not in the classroom. We watch their confidence and self-esteem blossom. We help them learn to risk assess and take responsibility for their own safety. We foster their curiosity, help them find information, and follow their interests. We see them adapt, grow, learn, investigate, explore, and develop a positive attitude to learning... We see it IN Forest School every week. However, monitoring it, proving it, and even the opportunity to find out if it transfers into the classroom, is difficult. The lack of a Forest School Curriculum is its strength, but in a world of data collecting the holistic,  cooperative process between the adults and the children can struggle to prove itself on paper. Observation, reflection and communication are common in the EYFS, but even then are set against specific outcomes. The unique development of each ch...

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 ...