Forest school experiment: How my tidy preschooler went feral for the day

The benefits of forest schools for active children who like playing in mud and who are a bit ‘rough and tumble’ are evident - but I’ve often wondered, would it suit a more delicate child like my three-year-old daughter, Alice, who doesn’t like getting dirty, prefers to play quietly and likes her world to be tidy and orderly?

As a bit of an experiment I decided to take Alice to a forest school at a nearby Montessori nursery and observe her behaviour within the setting; after the first five minutes of the session, I realised I didn’t know my daughter quite so well as I thought.

‘We gradually gave up on messy play sessions’

Since Alice first started walking, we have always joked in our family about how she could go to messy play dressed head-to-toe in white, and still come back home completely clean.

Over the years we gradually gave up on messy play sessions, as no matter how hard we tried, Alice would stand at the side and look with contempt at other children, covered in mud, paint, slime and glitter.

She is a very careful eater and getting the smallest amount of breakfast cereal on her hand still causes catastrophic meltdowns.

However, like most children, Alice has always been partial to jumping in muddy puddles and enjoys a good splash in the bath or swimming pool like the best of them - although her manner is very cautious.

But it got me thinking, perhaps Alice might like forest school after all?

Heather Schofield is the co-owner of Little Tots Montessori Nurseries. She is also a fully qualified forest school and Montessori teacher. One of her settings in Reading, Berkshire, has a forest school in nearby Mortimer West End and they let Alice and me tag along for the day.

Little Tots Nurseries was set up in the spring of 2001 by Heather and Julie Torrible. The nursery shares its forest setting with a nearby Burghfield forest school. This nursery was sold by Little Tots a while back but some of the staff have worked with the owners of Little Tots for nearly 17 years.

They share forest school sessions and in a Montessori fashion, they work together closely and have a strong team ethos.

There are several SEN children that attend the forest school, and the nursery accepts Government funded places for two- and three-year-olds.

Heather believes being in nature has therapeutic benefits for children who have issues communicating, or who come from difficult family backgrounds. She says: “Sometimes when you are at the site you ask the children, what can you hear? And they can’t hear cars and aeroplanes. It is so quiet. They might go, oh I can hear a dog barking or a bird singing, or sometimes it’s just quiet.”

There are a couple of goalposts and a football that the local Scouts group also use, but according to Heather, the children never seem to play with the ball. One of the boys said: “We don’t have football at forest school”.

Instead, the children enjoy examining ferns and wildflowers and even nettles, although the potential dangers are pointed out as part of forest school rules.

Campfires, hotdogs and marshmallows

Alice and I arrived at the site mid-morning, and immediately, Alice got some mud on her waterproofs and started getting upset, but Heather taught her to wipe her hands upon herself, which she copied - jumping up and down, shouting: “Yay, Forest school!”

So far, so good.

Several children crowded around to find out who the newcomers were, and Alice hit it off straight away with a slightly older girl, who took her hand and said: "Let’s go and play!".

Heather guided us to a leafy area where there were several kinds of trees including Oak, Yew and Beech.

The children showed Alice how to throw leaves. She was quite dainty at first, but was soon throwing leaves at my head, which caused all the others to excitedly follow suit until I had leaves in my handbag, hair and eventually, I was spitting them out of my mouth.

I laughed nervously and said, “Come on then children, let’s do something else.”

The children investigated a badgers' sett near to the campfire and although the badger has now vacated the site, there were freshly visited rabbit holes which were identified by the children.

Rules are very important for safety at forest school and these are worked in with the Montessori ethos. Heather says: “The children are so independent when they are out here, but obviously we needed to make them independent. We needed to give them those choices and the resources to become independent.”

Along with not eating berries and mushrooms, one of the strictest rules at forest school is to stay outside the log circle which surrounds the campfire - especially when it is lit.

Heather expertly lit a fire and made hotdogs for all the children, and I crouched with Alice to toast a marshmallow, which she refused to eat because it was too messy, but she stared wistfully into the flames. We were advised that kneeling to toast the marshmallows was the best option, but Alice wasn’t too sure about that.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

Alice decided not to eat her hotdog because she wanted to go back to making a giant puddle, utilising an outside tap and mini watering can. The other children had moved on to another activity but Alice kept going; it was an activity she wasn’t used to at home, or her pre-school. She’s always been a bit of a pourer, and this was her favourite activity of the day.

As I smiled on, enchanted by her surprisingly sudden love of ultra-splashy water play, another child sidled up to Alice and said: “Don’t forget to turn off the tap, for the planet”.

Alice happily complied, and I felt slightly relieved at this as the puddle had now taken on potentially hazardous proportions, something which the practitioners had already identified, but I was slow on the uptake.

After hotdog time, we took a tour round the grounds. Alice was interested in some tall attractive flowers she had spotted and pointed them out to me shouting: “Pretty flowers mummy”.

“Foxgloves, how lovely” I replied, going in for a sniff, shortly before Heather intervened, saying, “yes, the children know to stay away from these, they are very poisonous.”

Alice relished every moment of the forest school and the only thing which she was not sure about were some slippery balance logs.

She wasn’t completely covered in mud by the end of the day, but she got a lot dirtier than I had expected and had taken everything in her stride.

I probably coped less well with the mess. By the end of the day my clothes stunk of bonfire smoke and my hair was full of leaves and dirt. I loved the serenity of the forest school but wasn’t keen on the messiness of nature. I had to resist the urge to get the wipes out of my bag and clean off my daughter’s face. And I have to admit I was glad I didn’t have to pick up any insects.

Myself and my daughter both learnt a lot from the experience, and I realised that my daughter is more like me than I had previously thought.

Her sense of caution and not wanting to get dirty clearly comes from me. Ultimately Alice had completely embraced forest school; albeit in her own cautious way. I, however, clearly needed to learn how to live in the moment and how to appreciate nature more.

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