Forest School

Forest School Handbook

Our extensive grounds enable us to further enhance our pastoral provision by offering Forest Schools activities to pupils across the Federation. Qualified staff support the children’s academic and social development through planned sessions which are built upon a child-centred inspirational learning process. It offers opportunities for holistic growth through regular sessions. It is a program that supports play, exploration and supported risk taking. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.

History of Forest School

Forest School has a developmental ethos shared by thousands of trained practitioners around the world, who are constantly developing their learning styles and skills to support new and imaginative learners. Its roots reach back to the open-air culture, 'friluftsliv' or free air life, seen as a way of life in Scandinavia where Forest School began. It arrived in the UK in 1993 and has grown from strength to strength since then.

Ethos of Forest School

The ethos of Forest School is based on providing an outdoor experience where there is an understanding of children’s capacity to initiate, test and maintain curiosity in the world around them. It believes in children's right to play; the right to access the outdoors; the right to access risk through exploring the natural world; and the right to experience a healthy range of emotions, through all the challenges of social interaction, to build a resilience that will enable continued and creative engagement with their peers. The process helps and facilitates more than knowledge-gathering, it helps learners develop socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually. It creates a safe, non-judgemental nurturing environment for learners to try stuff out and take risks. Forest School inspires a deep and meaningful connection to the world and an understanding of how a learner fits within it. Our approach to risk means that learners constantly expand on their abilities by solving real-world issues, building self-belief and resilience. We believe that risk is more than just potential for physical harm, but a more holistic thing, there are risks in everything we do, and we grow by overcoming them. Forest School therefore, helps participants to become healthy, resilient, creative and independent learners.