Tips for running a successful forest school where 'magic happens every day'

The benefits of outdoor learning and play for young children have been extolled by numerous studies, yet still so many children in nurseries are not getting enough time outside.

Just under a quarter of early years settings in a recent survey by Learning through Landscapes and the Early Childhood Forum said they had no outdoor freeflow and children in their care are unable to go outside when they wish, independently of an adult.

This reduction on a child’s time in the fresh air is also happening at home with a global study revealing that children’s playtime is in dramatic decline, with the majority of children now spending as little time outdoors as a prison inmate. On average, children spend an hour or less outside per day, with one in ten never playing outdoors.

This indoor culture that has developed seems crazy when “academic research shows that active play is the natural and primary way that children learn. It is essential to their healthy growth and progress, particularly during periods of rapid brain development. Yet, too often play is disregarded as frivolous and pointless”, says Sir Ken Robinson, leading expert in education, creativity and human development, and chair of the Dirt is Good Child Development Advisory Board.

With many nurseries admitting to having limited and inadequate outdoor space, it is important that they utilise other resources in their surrounding locality.

Climbing, mud play and bug hunting

An obvious space is nearby parks or woods and one way of harnessing these readily accessible resources is through forest school activities. These include making dens, exploring and learning about the different environments, climbing, mud play, bug hunting and making ‘bug hotels’, scavenger hunts, art work using natural materials and observing wildlife and their habitats.

The whole Forest School idea originates from Scandinavia and is becoming more and more popular here, with the approach enabling children to take risks and have the freedom to explore. There are now around 8,000 forest schools in the UK.

Christina Dee, who has been a forest school trainer for 15 years, set up the Forest School Learning Initiative (FSLI) in 2006, carrying out forest school sessions and training up forest school leaders.

Tips for practitioners

She spoke at the recent Childcare Expo in London, giving tips to early years practitioners on setting up a successful forest school.

“The ethos of forest schools is child-led learning. It helps children’s self-esteem, confidence and independence. We do that by making sure that everything we do at forest school is a small, achievable task,” she says.

“The first thing we do at forest school is the children have a walk around the area and look at the things which we have to do to keep them safe. Children are excellent at risk management.

Forest school sessions tend to be around two hours long and need a base camp so the children know where to return to. “As a forest school leader, you observe the child, look at the outcomes and most importantly it is child-led.”

Ms Dee has found that children who struggle at being inside, when you take them outside become leaders at forest school. “We have boys who will paint with mud on trees but they won’t pick up a pen or paintbrush inside”.

'You feel the wind and you hear the sounds of the trees'

She sees forest schools as being a “very holistic process” and says: “You go outside, you feel the wind and you have the sounds of the trees around you. It is always changing.

“Forest schools are an inspirational process where we use the outdoors to learn. I will pick up some sticks and we talk about which stick is heavier and which one is bigger and we use positional language to say where we would put the stick.”

Some nurseries may think that because they are located in an urban area, they cannot join in with the forest school movement.

However this is not true. Ms Dee says: “Ideally it is held in a wood, but forest schools can also be run very successfully in the grounds of a nursery. One way of making it more wild is to stop mowing the grass.” She add: “If it is in a park you need to be able to observe and monitor the children at all times. The space needs to be big enough for the whole group and it shouldn’t be a tidy and well-kept area.

“Equally, childminders can use parks or their own gardens.”

Rules

In terms of health and safety, there does need to be rules. “The forest school leader will do a health and safety check every time and they will always do a check of the site and if it is really wet for example, talk to the children about the things they have to be careful of.

“If children start running around with sticks, we teach them how to carry the sticks so they put their thumbs on the top and drag them behind them.

“The other thing that can happen is that children start to use the sticks as weapons so we talk to them about using sticks safely.

“Children at one of the forest schools we have set up have devised their own rules. These are Stop, No Licking and No Picking. These stand for stop boundaries, don’t put your fingers in your mouths and don’t pick things that are growing.”

Nurseries will find some parents are opposed to the whole concept of forest school. They do not like the idea of their child getting dirty or wet or being outside in the cold, winter months or they will express concerns over their safety.

This is why, Ms Dee says “it is important to get parents on board and also run sessions for them so they can see their children will be safe. It is up to us to engage parents.”

For her forest school is “about watching the magic and this magic doesn’t just happen sometimes. It happens every day”.

Forest Schools sessions need to be run by a Level 3 trained Forest Schools practitioner. More information on Forest Schools can be found at http://www.forestschoolassociation.org