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 ...

I hate being ill. I know that no one actually likes it, but for those of us who provide Forest School, being ill usually means an extra little bit of chaos, as there may not be anyone to step into our role, so the organisational fallout of being off sick is something we try hard to avoid! Being outside keeps most of the viruses that circulate School at bay. It strengthens the immune system of the Forest School Leader as well as the children, so luckily for me getting sick is fairly rare. Yep, I get headaches, and everything-else-aches, and the odd cold, but fresh air and over-the-counter painkillers seem to mean 'soldiering on' is easily possible.  This week was a disastrous week for germs to finally catch up with me. It's the last week of term, Celebration Week, a week of campfires and treats, and I did head in ready to do 3 marshmallow toasting sessions, but only survived the morning before I had to retreat home to the duvet... and a sick bowl. When Covid-19 was at its h...

It's been one of those  weeks. It's felt ten days long and my feet haven't touched the ground. In fact, my no-work Friday has included 7 hours of admin on the laptops.  On top of the 7 Chartham classes doing Forest School sessions, we had Aylesham school visiting for a session too. Some of the Eco Clubs were up and running, but other changes in this new Term's timetable needed negotiating to make space.  Next week the Firs Nursery next door will be having sessions so these needed planning as well as the regular eight weekly ones this Term. We're also not too far off hosting over a dozen Level 3 Forest School Leader students for their training on-site. Oh, and we'll be repeating said training in the Autumn. Usual site maintenance, a half-year 'report', an update to the 5-year site management plan, two volunteers, a member of staff joining the training programme, a phone call to Uruguay to answer some Forest School and Outdoor learning questions, and my fe...

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...

One of the more difficult aspects of Forest School for most people to come to terms with is the 'Child Led' ethos. School Leaders, parents, any kind of inspector, and even the curious public often question it. Many of us have backgrounds in education before we train to deliver Forest School, so we are already well versed in curriculum areas, learning intentions, and engaging activities... all of which have planned outcomes. To then set children free to explore on their own requires an entire reset on how you've been facilitating learning and what you think it looks like. Being open to this change doesn't mean you don't have to adapt. I assume anyone training is already interested in a different way of helping children explore and understand the world around them. But whether it's a recent grounding in (or several years/decades of) data input via a spreadsheet, it frequently leads to a kind of hybrid approach to planning and assessment for Forest School Sessions...

This week I started to assess the students who studied their Level 3 Forest School Leader course with us. Luckily for me, I started close at home with a colleague. I had criteria to focus on as well as an overall impression to form. It wasn't entirely a tick chart, there was room for comment, for justification of opinion, or example of success/failure. This is mostly guidance though, Forest School, like most of life, is a little more nuanced than a 'yes' or 'no'. This became really evident when going over everything with the student afterwards. The ability to assess her own very good session was hampered by provisos on every point. She felt there was more she could have done, more she could have provided, more she could expand... And there probably was, but isn't that true of every session? I've got used to the assessment part of my planning being a shorthand that few others would understand. A quick reference to say how to improve an activity, or to try it ...