Mama Beech

We have a lot of visitors at Forest School.  Plenty are of the feathered and furred variety, and the children love meeting them! But, we also have lots of people coming and going. This week (and next) we have a group of students on their Level 3 Forest School Leader Course. We team up with Forest School Learning Initiative a couple of times a year, we provide the space and the support tutoring, and FSLI provides almost twenty years of training experience on 3 continents, in several countries! It's great having students around as it's impossible NOT to view everything we do through their eyes as new and different! Which is always a great perspective! We also have some much smaller visitors in the form of children from the Nursery next door! Again, watching them need very few activities, and to just revel in the freedom of exploring for themselves is a timely reminder as to why we actually do this!  Last weekend we did a little visiting of our own and took the opportunity to me...

November is a month I have an uneasy relationship with. As we await it's dawning I realise the thought of it hits harder than the actual month! Over the years I've lost too many people in November so it holds a few poignant anniversaries. My lovely Dad, who fostered my love of nature, had his birthday mid-month, which makes it bittersweet since we lost him, and some of my biggest life changes dawned in one November or another! Now, I don't view these changes as a bad thing, but they were each a time of life upheaval - even if the choices made were so much for the better! Adjustment takes time, well for me at least! So I always eye up the arrival of the 11th month with a little trepidation... what will it bring this time round?! One of the more significant alterations November brought to my life was Chartham Primary School. I officially started working there in November 2019, which feels like yesterday and a  lifetime ago in equal measure! This Primary School on the edges of...

It's midway between the two weeks off of work for the School Easter Holiday. I have only been in work once, I've bought 2 books, and I've cued the basic Forest School Social Media for the next term online. I'm by no means the only person or profession to either never entirely switch off, or to work out of hours, it's the norm for many of us. This 4 day weekend though, my aim was to just enjoy time with my best friend who lives 100 miles away, and switch off completely while we finally get to catch up... When working I'm pretty much awake by 5.30, up by 6.30, out the door by 7.15 and at work by 8. This routine doesn't leave me entirely on days off! So I'm still awake early, but make a cuppa and head back to bed. So here I am at 5.50am, Bestest is asleep in the next room, I can hear birds outside and I'm typing on my phone! Yesterday, I was explaining my job to someone. People ask and I always use my job title of 'Forest School Leader' and more...

Earlier in the year, I wondered aloud - well, in print - why Forest School isn't automatically offered as an add-on to teacher training. I know of a few universities that organise visits to sessions, and even one or two that buy in extra training and regularly send the students to a session to participate, not just observe, but it isn't standard practice. Whether Covid is on the rise, mutating again, or slowly dying out, in this post-lockdown world getting children outside as much as possible is the healthiest option! Outdoor learning has proven time and again that it promotes well-being and increases positive mental health , as well as promoting physical health . With the new GCSE in Natural History on the horizon Secondary Schools may well find embracing Forest School an easy way to introduce the subject. Of course, Forest School is not yet embedded in all Primary Schools, those that have it may well find their pupils at an advantage when choosing such a GCSE a few years aft...

I spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of Forest School for children and how effective any and all Outdoor Learning is. In the same way that some people choose to teach Primary and not Secondary, or volunteer with the Scouts or Guides, what makes us as adults choose to provide Forest School?  In a week when student Forest School Leaders were welcomed to our school, it's something I've given some thought to. Were they all willing volunteers? Had any been asked to do the course? Was anyone reluctant to start this journey? Who had experienced this before as a volunteer or participant somehow? Who was walking in blind!? We have two staff members on the course. One has spent almost three school years supporting me outside and for a lot of that time it's been weekly. They have seen Forest School in snow, rain, hail, and sleet. They've sweltered in 30oC plus heat. They've accompanied classes that throw themselves into Forest School exploration, and classes that n...

When I worked in London immediately after Easter came Summer Term.Term 3. In two halves. Now I work within Kent and this is the dawn of terms five and six. It's the same time period, it's the same season, and it's the same chaos across all education. If you work in a school your year is divided into six no matter what. You are technically at work nine months of the year, but you squeeze in twelve months of work during that time! Summer Term(s) feel the easiest. You've had your class for two-thirds of the school year and you've all got to know each other and the routine. no longer does the commute to school and the drag home happen in darkness. Everyone and everything seems more cheerful. Somehow, in our perspective, this overshadows the end of year reports, school journeys, SATs, pending staff changes, school fetes, sports days, parent evenings, leaver's concerts, parties, and the emotions of year six children getting ready to move on... Forest School remains co...