Many UK schools now run their own Forrest School (or Beach School) programmes with most doing it all the way from pre-school to Year 6. It is also common place in many nurseries. Settings may be lucky enough to have the grounds to be able to run Forrest Schools on site or might be even luckier and have a wood or beach nearby.
Forrest school is an initiative which supports and enables children to learn in nature, and in particular woodland environments. “At Forest School all participants are viewed as: · equal, unique and valuable · competent to explore & discover · entitled to experience appropriate risk and challenge · entitled to choose, and to initiate and drive their own learning and development · entitled to experience regular success · entitled to develop positive relationships with themselves and other people · entitled to develop a strong, positive relationship with their natural world” https://www.forestschoolassociation.org/what-is-forest-school/ With the right risk assessments in place Forrest School is available for all children regardless of ability or additional need. Much like the Reggio Emilia and Montessori approaches there is a heavy emphasis on the beauty and wonder of nature, on tapping into children’s natural curiosity of the world and increased capacity to learn in outdoors environments and on risk taking. As with these styles and as with philosophy for children the teacher is seen as a facilitator in this learning and not as a lecturer. Like philosophy for children it is an approach that seeks to empower children to identify and enhance their own learning experiences through exploration of the world around them with the inspiration of all the natural world has to offer. Much like philosophy for children, Forrest School takes a holistic and heuristic approach to creating resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.
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AuthorMiss Magical Mess is a pre-school teacher and P4C Level 2B facilitator. After a shaky start as a P4C facilitator (P4C with 3 year olds... are you kidding?) Miss Magical Mess created her own approach to P4C and enquiry model and is now a big fan. Archives |