- Forest School sessions run across all year groups in three academy trust primaries in Cheshire
- Weekly sessions include practical skills like making a camp fire and learning about the natural world
- Pupils and teachers report an array of benefits including reduced stress and better engagement with learning
ACTION
The Samara Trust, made up of three primary schools in the county, launched its first Forest School provision at one of its settings in 2012.
Since then, the trust has expanded the programme across all of its schools, accompanied by Branching Out, a separate training arm offering courses to teach others how to deliver Forest School sessions.
Sarah Pearson, the trust’s Forest School lead and a Forest School trainer, says she embraced the opportunity to swap her indoor classroom for an outdoor one.
Having taught for several years at Upton Heath – one of the trust’s three primaries – she was given the opportunity by the school’s head to go on a Forest School training course.
A further qualification then meant Pearson was able to train others to become Forest School leaders.
“I have a biology degree and a passion for the outdoors, so this combines the best of both worlds for me,” she explains.
“We had this woodland area at the school and I was conscious that we had this fantastic resource that wasn’t being tapped into as much as it could be.”
Pearson says the Forest School sessions vary according to different ages, with reception children at Upton Heath coming outside every week for about 90 minutes.
Year 1 children are given half-a-day-a-week sessions on alternate weeks throughout the academic year.
All other year groups undertake Forest School activities half a day a week for half a term every school year.
“So each of the year groups gets a programme of approximately six weeks, but then they’ll get another the following year and then another the year after, so it builds up through their school lives,” says Pearson.
She explains that the trust’s three settings include a small village school, which her colleague visits on a weekly basis to deliver Forest School sessions.
The third school is in the process of training another colleague to become a Forest School leader on site, she adds.
Logistically, setting up Forest School provision required each of the trust’s schools to reorganise their timetables to accommodate it into their planning for the academic year.
“We had to evolve a Forest School that works within a school setting and that’s an issue for a lot of schools that want to do the same, but question how it will fit in timewise,” explains Pearson.
She says a common misconception leads to a muddling of what Forest School and outdoor learning entail (see box).
“While Forest School is an outdoor learning approach, it’s not about taking learning objectives out to the woods and delivering them.
“It’s not thinking we need to tick off these curriculum objectives by taking them outside,” she says.
Pearson believes the Forest School provides “an education of the whole child” which is highly child-centred and child-led.
Creating a supportive and relaxed environment allows children who might be struggling in a classroom setting to gradually build their confidence and self-esteem, she says.
By taking the classroom outdoors, it promotes a holistic development of each child where life skills such as communication, resilience and teamwork come to the fore.
“You don’t go out with a set objective in your head, but they do learn because you are teaching them about sustainability, the natural world around them and how to identify native species,” says Pearson.
New skills also include how to use fires and building shelters, each of which brings its own benefit to the children.
“They don’t want to be the one person who hasn’t whittled their stick or got their shelter put up before the rain comes – they are resilient and keep going until they have achieved that,” she adds.
Pearson also provides Forest School-based intervention programmes for children who might be vulnerable, lack confidence or are struggling with a particular aspect of the curriculum.
“I’ve taken out reluctant writers and after a few weeks, I’ve been able to take pictures of them sat up trees writing, completely engrossed in what they are doing,” she says.
Equally, for those more able children, the Forest School is used as a resource to extend their individual skills, Pearson adds.
Branching Out, the trust’s training arm, offers two Forest School training courses a year, comprising seven contact days with students.
This is followed by support sessions over a nine-month period in which students have to complete written work and set up their own Forest School which is then observed and assessed by Pearson.
She says numbers are kept deliberately small to around six or seven students to enable a close relationship to be built up.
As the trust’s only Forest School trainer at present, Pearson says there are plans to expand the training provision further in the future.
She is keen to support all settings interested in delivering Forest School, even those that might not have as many natural areas in which to base their provision.
“We had one student whose school just had one tree in a corner of a field. So you need some understanding of what saplings you can plant or how you can let the grass grow.
“Generally, we find where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she says.
IMPACT
While some numerical data is used to measure the impact of the Forest School provision, Pearson believes the best evidence has been collated through observations and feedback from teachers, children and parents.
She says class teachers report children transferring skills they have developed outside back into the classroom.
“Because they come out with us, they can then ask the children when they’re back inside if they remember a particular time that something happened in Forest School and how they coped with that. It’s lovely to see the link between the two settings,” explains Pearson.
One teacher says Forest School has allowed their class to have a “welcome break” from the demands of a full and challenging curriculum.
“The children relax immediately in the outdoor classroom and even those children who are reticent in class are keen to answer questions and be involved in all Forest School activities.
“There is no pressure to be ‘even better’, but instead, the children have developed other important skills – those of teamwork, friendships, following instructions and learning about nature,” the teacher says.
For the pupils, they report Forest School making them feel “happy and safe” and teaching them how to help other people.
Pearson says a further benefit has been seen in pupils who start to work and interact with a wider range of children, thereby extending their usual cohort.
“All the constraints within the classroom, whether that’s to do with pressures of learning or from peer groups, don’t apply when we’re outside.
“Being in the woods makes everyone feel equal and all that is stripped away and you just get on with it,” she says.
FOREST SCHOOLS PRINCIPLES & ETHOS
According to the Forest Schools Association, there are six key principles that shape and govern the Forest School ethos and make it unique in its reach, delivery and effect. These six principles are:
- Forest School is a long-term process of regular sessions, rather than one-off or infrequent visits; the cycle of planning, observation, adaptation and review links each session.
- It takes place in a woodland or natural environment to support the development of a lifelong relationship between the learner and the natural world.
- It uses a range of learner-centred processes to create a community for being, development and learning.
- It aims to promote the holistic development of all involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.
- It offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves.
- It is run by qualified Forest School practitioners, who continuously maintain and develop their professional practice.
Source: Forest School Association
