Helping to promote Forest Schools
We provide minibus transport to collect children from local Primary School and a Forest School Leader on site to plan and run Forest School Sessions, enhancing outdoor learning opportunities for them.
Aims
Forest School uses natural resources for inspiration, to encourage ideas and intrinsic motivation.
We have four Forest School Sites within our school grounds and have been keen for other schools to be able to make use of them as well.
Young children at St Teresa's benefit as they develop, where appropriate, the physical, social, cognitive, linguistic, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of the learner.
Staff at St Teresa's benefit because they see how the outdoors can be used to develop these skills.
Background
We have links with St Teresa's through the local parish and work with them in partnership in a range of projects. The opportunity to use the school facilities enables St Teresa's to enhance their curriculum offer and their pupils to experience Forest Schools and all that it brings.
We invited all the local Schools and Nurseries to a Forest School experience and Little Roos Nursery - Taplow and Floreat Montague Park were among the attendees and thouroughly enjoyed the day and provided the below comments.
Resources
Forest School Site at Holme Grange.
Transport for the pupils.
Trained Forest Leader.
Holme Grange does not make a charge for this.
Impact
Confidence of the pupils was evidenced to have increased and their willingness to take risks. Staff reported benefits to the school and parents session was also put on to allow parents to see the benefits in their child's development.
Little Roos Nursery - Taplow made the following observations:
"Jane has provided outstanding teaching with outstanding learning taking place with maximum effect to our children, staff and parents. We cannot thank you both enough for allowing our children and staff to be involved in such a valuable experience.
As part of our evaluation of the impact of our teaching on the children’s learning, I analyse every child’s progress three times a year and set future targets. I have recently analysed the attainment data of all the children who attend our Nursery, including the impact Forest School has had on the 13 children who attended Forest School last term, focusing on personal, social and emotional development as well as specifically looking at the children's risk and challenge skills and problem solving skills.
I am delighted to inform you that out of the 13 children who attended, ALL have made more than expected progress in Personal, Social and Emotional development since the start of the Forest School sessions. They have now exceeded their ages and stages development! One child in particular has made significant progress despite his speech and language delay and personal, social and emotional skills. He has reaped the greatest benefits from Forest School. We have been able to see a vast improvement in his attitude towards others as well as his willingness to persevere longer at a task. His speech and language skills have shown the greatest improvement. He would come back from the Forest School sessions bursting with pride, smiling from ear to ear and willing to share what he had done by saying the key words he had learnt!
Not only have our children benefited from this experience but also our staff who attend with the children. During my supervisory visits at the Nursery, it has been clearly evident that the practitioners have changed their style of teaching to maximise learning. They now consciously take note of the child and let the child lead their learning. The environment is laid out for the children to develop their problem solving skills as well as encouraging children to learn from each other.
Parents comment on a regular basis on the impact Forest School has had on their child. One particular parent is so impressed as their child now willingly goes in the garden searching for bugs and talking about their features. This was not the case before as they chose to stay indoors because it was too cold. They have subsequently used the search engines on the Internet to learn facts about worms and have shared their findings with the Nursery children.
Thank you once again for the opportunity."
More comments:
“Within the classroom I have noticed that the bonds between children at forest school have continued and the children are concentrating for longer. Pencil skills have also improved. The children’s language skills have widened and they listen to each other far more”
“Children are far more independent and resilient within class. Children have used words such as perseverance and bravery when tackling something new within their learning. They are focussed, creative and thoughtful about what they are doing in class.”
Pupil Involvement
EYFS pupils at St Teresa's.
Nursery children at Little Roos Taplow.
Floreat Montague Park.
Frequency
Onging weekly sessions throughout the academic year with the opportunity to extend.