Forest School

Intent

Forest School aims to promote the holistic development of all involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners. Forest School offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves. Opportunities are provided to enrich children’s learning across the curriculum as well as to develop their respect for our natural environment including wildlife. 

Implementation

We aim to give all children a collective insight into the ethos of Forest School. In some year groups, Reception and Year One, this will be through a one day a week experience across a term and in other year groups it will be through individual class sessions linked to their curriculum.

Forest School builds on a child’s innate motivation and positive attitude to learning, offering them the opportunities to take risks, make choices and initiate learning for themselves. Our Forest school learning environment provides opportunities for children to develop self-esteem, self-confidence, to form positive relationships with others, to develop a growing awareness of their emotional needs and the needs of others, to learn to cooperate and work with their peers and adults and to develop strategies in order to take risks within the boundaries of safety. Forest School is about exploring and experiencing the natural world through practical activities. The children go out in all weathers, all year round, exploring and learning from the seasons and environment changes.

One of the principles of Forest School is to promote environmental awareness and encourage sustainability. The children are taught about respect and responsibility for the world around them. Both the children and adults are encouraged to respect their environment and to be aware of conservation issues of the wild area around them. The aim is to promote respect for wildlife and if appropriate, reclaimed, recycled and sustainable resources will be used to maintain and develop our forest school area. Encouraging children to care for the environment is an essential part of Forest School. 

Impact 

We aim that all our children:

Develop a strong, positive relationship with and respect for their natural world.     

Grow in confidence as a result of the freedom, time and space they are given in their learning.

I love it when we do everything, it's the best! 

I love the mud kitchen because you can pretend to make stuff!

How are the activities at Forest School? They are challenging but good challenges – not too easy. That would be boring!

Making a sledge by ourselves was great, we made it in a little group. We got to test it out and had a little race- we won!

You learn about nature and understand about the world.

What would I change about Forest School? Make the sessions longer!