A Forest School

What is a Forest School?

Forest schools were developed in Scandinavia in the 1950's and focused on teaching children about the natural world. Development in Britain began in the mid 1990's as a provision for pre school aged children. Since then the ideas of Forest School have spread to many areas as educationalists have witnessed the impact the ideas can have on improving confidence and self-esteem.

Schools who participate are looking for a range of development improvements in children including:

Forest School activities may start as adult-led activities but we have flexibility and activley encourage child-led developments wherever possible.

A typical Forest School session

There is no such thing as a typical day at Forest School, but there are some things we make sure always happen.

We always make sure we have snacks and drinks available, we always have some time aside to sit together and reflect on our actions and we always make sure there is time to talk and listen to each other.

Some activities involve simple actions such as collecting different sized sticks to create a fence; others require more concentration like learning a new knot and applying that to make a picture frame or other gadget. we may use a bow saw to cut poles foe seating or forage around looking for minibeasts or dragons!

We try to ensure our sessions are creative and exciting and there is room for child led as well as school led activity.