Mama Beech

Like everything in education, budget dictates. There are lots of projects, schemes, plans, ideas, and pedagogies that schools can adopt to focus on. Many will indeed improve school performance, or children's learning, or make day to day life a little easier for staff. None of them come with a guarantee. All of them require training or membership, a one-off payment or a subscription. When a school considers implementing Forest School it isn't any different. It is true that it is an investment rather than a charge . Whatever is decided upon is introduced to improve an aspect of school. A maths scheme of work to ensure everything is covered. A literacy programme to make it easier for all staff to use the same tools. Buying in PE trainers to improve the activities provided, to outsource the planning, and to cover PPA times for some or all staff. Whatever the cost, the aim is to enhance what the school provides. Forest School is a pedagogy, but sessions are a 'service', boug...

This first week of term arrived in the wake of the worst recorded storm to hit South East England, and in the midst of other storms circulating assorted areas of the UK which sent further wind and rain our way.  I spent last weekend imagining the worst. Our canopy can't blow down and it's supported underneath by a tripod, but I imagined it would've been shredded by the gusts that whipped across farmland around us and then raced across our field hitting Forest School at full pelt. We have two tarpaulin-topped dens and I assumed the tarps would be flying across the South Downs quite happily. We have many mature trees which have sections which are dying off and many sturdier trees had fallen according to the news... So felled twigs, branches, boughs, even trunks, were inevitable. I wasn't looking forward to Monday morning! I have no idea how we managed to weather the storms almost unscathed but we did. No torn canopy, twigs everywhere, a couple of small branches, but all t...

Most of the effectiveness of Forest School comes from the quality of time spent outside. Children repeatedly doing both new things and returning to things they consider important expands their interests and their expertise. We know that repeated actions grow both muscle memory and strong neural pathways, but immersing yourself in something you love to do builds confidence and self-esteem. Discovering something new adds curiosity and motivation into the mix! Knowing that Forest School will be there next week means the fear of missing out is less, freeing children up to decide what they want to focus on now, and what they will be happy to try another time. I have a lot of suggestions aimed at me that start with "next time, can we...?".  Many children will work on a project such as peeling or whittling and ask to leave it in the shed until they come back. Others try over and over to master a skill, with varying degrees of success, with no goal or judgement except their own. The...

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...

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 ...

I'm going to assume that most people who read this regularly have some kind of connection with Forest School. They are FS trained to some level, work in or with a FS, have children in a FS, at the very least like  the idea of FS!  There is a lot of good quality outdoor learning across the UK. In some countries, it is more highly developed by Government than others, although I know many in those systems want to see it go further! For instance, lots of people look towards the Scottish drive for outdoor learning with the wistful hope that it will spread south of the border!  But being good doesn't mean you can't be better! Having any kind of Outdoor Provision needs constant review and development, in the same way that learning inside schools never stands still, neither does the opportunity to take learning outside. Early Years/Pre School/0-5 has this embedded in their curriculum, and recent years has seen KS1/infant education push for more learning outside. Personally, I'd...

The looming date for school opening up to all pupils is being discussed more and more (the date varies across the UK). For many Forest Schools this signals their opportunity to start running sessions again. There are so many ways Forest Schools deliver time outside that there has been a huge range of effects the pandemic has had on this provision. Some colleagues are awaiting the schools they work in to re-start sessions. If a school uses land off site it hasn't always been possible to deliver sessions, needing journey plans or volunteers to travel to site. Independent Forest Schools have often fallen under the heading of a 'leisure' provider and have struggled to be recognised as a form of education. Some of these small businesses have been closed for almost a year. Forest School Leaders who have contracts with schools have been on furlough, or just on hold, and unable to provide sessions at all during Lockdown. Some of us have sites on school grounds and have never closed...