Mama Beech

New Year and a New Timetable, one that allows me to work with small groups of children as well as whole classes. Forest School remains PPA cover and up to 30 children outside exploring together for 2 hour session, but the small groups are 30 minutes of focused time that allows the children to explore something in greater detail. We aim these projects at children who need to build their confidence, communication, and/or self-esteem, and this is far from an original idea!  The groups each have a different focus, a task or plan that I need help to complete. Sometimes I need them to help me brainstorm ideas and solutions, sometimes I require a little practical help. I'm not the only Forest School Leader to do this, not even at our school! Between us we have gardening groups, Eco Clubs, and Wildlife Wardens.  Some time is 1-to-1 for children who need as little distraction as possible. Other sessions are designed for children to find their voice, give an opinion, and be listened to....

As leaders, we spend a lot of time anticipating and facilitating the area and the activities. We react to the children's curiosity, investigation, and interests. We encourage them to do a little extra, explore a little further, and discover a little more. We respond to requests and questions, discuss possibilities, introduce ideas and information, and we follow the lead of the children. On bad days we are patrolling and constantly reminding children to stay safe, or be kind, or to adhere to boundaries. Those days are not frequent, but children will always bring class disagreements and personal feelings to basecamp, and even if it's resolved before they arrive, they cannot always shake off the negative hangover from it. Occasionally a session can struggle to get past playground squabbles no matter what space, communication, or support the adults offer. On good days we move from group to group, individual to couple, observing what they are doing, ensuring they are safe, and aimin...

A new year dawns, and I swear last year was shorter than 12 months! It sped by. I'm sure it's an age thing, but following a couple of years with time having no meaning at all, I seemed to have blinked and 2023 arrived! Almost all of 2020 and 2021 feel both like last Summer AND long, long, ago! Pandemic restrictions and adaptations seem to have been lifted only recently, while that first Lockdown was surely ancient history? All the changes have sectioned the in-between time into what feels like years instead of months. I said last week (last year!) that this is my fourth academic year at Chartham, and the journey we've all been on has been epic, let alone our specific growth! It took a lot of planning to reach how we delivered sessions last Term ( info here ). Like all good journeys, ours is not about the destination, we aim for the horizon and keep going. Passengers and landscape alter all the time, and we have to re-navigate our path to accommodate pupils, staffing, budge...

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...

I'm sitting in a friend's dining room with huge mug of tea. She and her family are 'night owls' and I'm definitely an 'early bird'. It's 8am and she and I got to bed about 6 hours ago after a great dinner party and an overdue catch up in her new home. So now, the house is still, I have my cuppa, and I'm silently watching her snow covered garden. There are silent Crows and Magpies flitting up and down from grass to treetops, Sparrows performing aerobatic tumbles, and a Blackbird overturning leaves in pursuit of a sheltering bug, while Goldfinches zip past them at speed.  The snow is a messy mass of footprints, shadowy dips, and piled ridges. None of them human made. I can trace the journey the fox took from right to left along the edge of the patio and back again. I can see scurrying marks and holes the squirrels have left, and an assortment of pigeon footprints lead me to wonder if they were joining in with 'Strictly Come Dancing' last evenin...

Amongst Forest School Leaders and Outdoor Practitioners, there is always a conversation going on somewhere regarding clothing. What is the most durable?  The most value for money?  The warmest?  The most waterproof?  The BEST!? A lot of this will boil down to preference, and I think we all muddle through with a mix of new and old, top-class and trusted items that we know work for us! But when it comes to children it's a different matter. If we're supplying overalls we want the most hard-wearing clothing, capable of sliding down muddle banks without ripping and totally waterproof to protect whatever is underneath... and that comes at a price, especially when you need to buy in bulk. Usually, there is a compromise somewhere, maybe not the most expensive range but a mid-price version we hope will last a few years. Sometimes the remit to provide suitable attire will fall on parents and carers. This is something many will have considered before signing up to a Forest Scho...