Forest School Jo

Heading into Lockdown AGAIN...! As a Forest School within a Primary School we have managed to be open all the time school has been open. Lots of independent Forest Schools are struggling with regulations and ratios and facilities, and the complication of being a small business grouped in with leisure rather than education. It has been a tough time for them to find ways to provide opportunities for the children and families they work with, while we were free to adapt and move forward. Our Covid-19 Risk assessment is up to date and has worked well so we plough forward with it, reviewing it each time a new activity is introduced or guidelines change.  In order to ensure every class gets to experience Forest School we're running Forest School Lite ! A shortened version that means EYFS through to Year 6, plus two SEND classes, have an outdoor session with the Forest School Leader each week. It is hectic. It's not Forest School in any traditional way, but it is working. The children...

This month's weather has been the kind I like, as long as I don't have to work! So being a term time Forest School has it's benefits because I can kick back and enjoy the heat!  The sun has been out almost permanently, and on the rare occasion when cloud cover has has arrived, the temperature has dipped - just a little. Storms have been promised, and have raged around the country, in places causing havoc, but no rain evident for Mama Beech ... yet. This is the problem with term time only Forest School: The constant wondering if the newly planted willow is curling up and dying, if the pond is ridiculously low, or if the Woodland Trust baby trees are coping with the heat... Next week I will have the opportunity to go in and check everything over. I live 50 miles away from the site so I have no idea what I will find! This may well be a damage control visit rather than any kind of development planning! And if the storms come between now and then the ravages of a deluge or fou...

Mama Beech sits on the edge of a Forest School site overlooking the copse that hides basecamp. There's a strip of woodland the children explore, a field of space to run, and the huge tree shields the Fairy Glen quiet space. This site is on school grounds, and across the year as many classes as possible in a two-form Primary take part in full 2 hour FS Sessions... Until Lockdown interrupted and Coronavirus changed the rules. Emerging back into school life routines have changed, lessons have altered, classes are no longer the same size, or pupils, and restrictions due to social distancing and cross contamination make even the idea of Forest School Sessions as I know them fraught. So it's time to adapt. We've made the decision that all the children need as much outdoor time as possible. This stems from some children having been cooped up during the lockdown period and needing the space and freedom to move, the assertion that it's harder to catch Covid-19 outside (b...