Mama Beech

Education is full of contradictions. We want free thinkers but the curriculum is prescribed. We want independent learners but everything has a planned outcome. We want each child to be curious and engaged but every child has the same activity. We want children to take risks but we remove almost all of them. We want curious, independent, able, children who can self-regulate, behave responsibly, and think for themselves, yet nothing in the curriculum teaches them how to do this! It's written as a one-size-fits-all document and teachers try to weave their magic by opening it up as much as they can, making it as inclusive as possible, within the small time frame the termly schedule allows.  Forest School, on the other hand, is based on 6 fundamental principles: Long Term Event Set in Nature Holistic Approach Learner centred Risk Benefits Qualified staff These foundations in every practice will look different. For us, it looks like all Primary School Classes outside for a minimum of 90 ...

Like in all practices, in Forest School, how you do things alters over time. Some of it is a slow evolution as your own confidence grows, a lot of it is simple trial and error, and much of it varies between groups you work with. The better you know the children in your sessions, the more you tailor what you are offering to them. For a while, I thought I only aimed what I offered based on the age group I had at Basecamp, but it's become increasingly obvious over the years that it's more to do with the experiences the children bring to sessions. Moving from an urban setting to a significantly more 'rural' one meant some surprising adaptations for me, the main one being how the pupils at school took their trees and open spaces for granted. They could easily be immersed in nature just a block or two from their front doors, but this didn't mean they appreciated it or treated green spaces with respect. In London, the children cherished their time in the woods and were eag...