Forest School Jo

We all get the idea that going outside for a walk is good for us. Fresh air, moving muscles, blood pumping... Physically it is great for toning muscles and even losing weight, but the overwhelming evidence demonstrates that it does far more for our wellbeing than just boosting our bodies! This week has been Children's Mental Health Week , so it seems a good time to look at all the proven benefits of being outdoors. Both for children and for adults. I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted here, but I will include links that help prove the point for those of you who need to convince others elsewhere For Children the benfits come from fresh air in developing lungs, immune-system building microbes from soil, resilience due to seasons and weather, space to move, and endless things to discover which feed their minds and grow their curiosity! It sets the tone for being active for life , and stimulates their need to explore and investigate for themselves - learning. It builds co...

To fully understand how children learn, we need to understand how they experience that learning. A lot of what we as adults have learned in life feels inate. Most of us don't remember being taught to walk or talk, we don't necessarily remember being taught to hold a pencil or crayon, or how to wash ourselves. We just 'know' these things.  Yes, for some of us, these skills were trickier than others, but if we have 'mastered' them, we do them without a second thought.  We never had planned 'lessons' in tidying up, most of us started when we were small by putting things back in a toy box, hopefully as a game! Yes, it may have been a struggle once putting things away ceased to be fun, but we all understand the concept - even if we're not good at it! I appreciate there are factors surrounding something this' simple' which means even for us adults there is a vast scale of who does and doesn't do this well...! In education, we go through waves o...

The ice that kicked off the start of the year hasn't returned, but the thaw created sodden ground, and persistent rain has added to the mix. Mud is everywhere! Fighting it is impossible, so we work with it! Lets start with the obvious: Mud kitchens.  A staple of Forest Schools and many a playground. They come in all different sizes and shapes, from a bag of pots taken into a the wood or pans used in a dig pit, to beautiful kitchen replicas with all mod cons.  I've always found ANY table top works just as well as a kitchen 'design', and pallets stacked on top of each other, tied or nailed together, get as much use... or maybe more. Our established, slightly battered, and much loved mud kitchen (Top Pic) is well used, a little battered, but sturdy as it was built out of pallets. There are additions that have given it a prep table to work on, and a serving counter (Middle Pic), for taking orders and handing out McMud Burgers at McParkside, or lattes from cafes, and any so...

The beginning of this year sparkled into life with frosty mornings, white-dusted grass, low-hanging mist, crisp air and a new job! Having spent six years building Chartham Forest School up from basic provision to 3 developed sites, becoming training hosts, and providing sessions for the community, it was time to move on. So here I am at Parkside in Canterbury, a mere 30 minutes away, an weirdly, despite being much more of a city school, it's a place with much more actual woodland!  The school is ready to build their own reputation, and it's not from scratch. There was a very good FSL in place up until Summer 2025. The gap over the next 6 months took a toll, like any garden left untended, the result is a lot of tidying! So here we are, a fortnight into a new Forest School journey! The weather has thrown everything at us. Luckily, this corner of Kent missed the outskirts of the winds Storm Goretti battered the Channel and South West with, and the snow that has landed frequently h...

Many of you will have watched the David Attenborough TV series Wild Isle . A beautiful in-depth exploration of the British Isles and its surrounding seas. It made it clear that the wildlife, ecological balance, and therefore the life led on these islands is facing decimation. Within the school curriculum there are pockets of learning regarding ecosystems, flora, fauna, pollution, and sustainability, which aim to explain what they all are before the class move on to the next subject. However, the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and with the current predictions perhaps these lessons need to be a constant.  In Forest School we provide the opportunity for that theory to be seen in practice, week in and week out. Children are exploring and observing the natural world, encountering wildlife, watching life cycles and food chains play out, experiencing season changes, and are encouraged to support and preserve the environment they are in. Sadly, for most child...

Apologies for the lack of blog this weekend just gone. I usually aim to do it on a Friday afternoon - and it sometimes spills into the weekend, but lately, time has been running away from me! With the last of Summer fading away any sunny day feels like it needs grabbing! My weekends are full of housework, laundry, errands, and chores, and when the sun shines the opportunity to ignore it all is very tempting. Of course, it doesn't actually go anywhere, but ignorance is bliss so I spent Sunday at a Flower Farm and have been playing catch up with the hoover and washing machine ever since! Meanwhile, although the new school year doesn't feel very new anymore, there are still a lot of changes and rearranges to accommodate. Forest School is always a work in progress, so developing sites and practice while getting to know new children means a lot of reworking. My two colleagues new to Forest School know the school well but don't know the classes in Forest School, this is a learnin...

In my experience, September is a weird month. It signals the start of a new school year and a new school term. For independent Forest Schools things change, as some children leave to start school, or move schools, Summer Camps are over and new children start, but the weeks and sessions continue as they have done all year round. In School it's almost the same thing, a whole new EYFS, last year's Year 6's  have moved on, new pupils dotted about across the school, a new timetable, some new staff, and an overgrown Forest School to tame. September means change. For those of us who have done little Forest School over the School Holidays, there is also the slow return to the normal routine. To a different pace of life to that of August. Whether you've had a busy Summer or a lazy Summer the alarms were switched off and choices of how to spend each day were almost endless! Every year FSLs in schools everywhere have to adjust to having breakfast within 30 mins of getting up, to l...