Forest School is a favourite part of the week! When we go into the Forest the whole world opens up. The outdoors is an amazing place where we can dream of dragons, fairies and magic. It gives us all an opportunity to explore somewhere new not only in terms of learning more about the world around us but also the possibility of learning more about ourselves.
Each session is child-led, taking into account the individual’s needs, knowledge and stage of development, we plan activities which guide the children through every element of the Foundation Stage. The children learn spontaneously about Mathematics, Language, working together, Science as well as enhancing their story telling skills through the imaginative context that the woodland provides.
Through the mastery of small achievable tasks, the childrens’ self-esteem and independence skills develop. The experiences we offer individuals become more challenging as their confidence grows. Forest School can enable the individual to succeed, and so have a positive effect on that child’s school experience. We witness quiet children gaining the confidence to lead their peers, or openly sharing their discoveries unprompted. Children with challenging behaviour want to take part in activities that enable them to work closely and calmly with peers
The children also come to grips with concepts that are relatively advanced for their age within a completely natural context. Concepts like heat melting things, and flicking twigs into the air conveying the idea of science that would have been introduced at a much later stage of the curriculum had they been taught in the classroom. Yet at Forest School these four-year-olds have an opportunity to pick up on them naturally by conducting their very own experiments in a fun and intuitive way.