Forest Schools

Many people learn best through learning by doing, in most cases we are able to say that we have learnt something faster and better by experiencing the topic rather than being told about the experience, this idea that experiences can help teach children or even adults more effectively is what forest school’s principles are built on. Forest schools are set mainly to provide children with opportunities to learn outdoors and experience things for themselves. By visiting the outdoors a class of children are thought to be stimulating their senses and helps process information more effectively. The video below shows a classroom visiting the woods, and helps to understand how forest schools operate.

This shows that a trip to the woods every so often can be an impact on the child's development of language, social and physical skills. The children are given boundaries in the forest but have the freedom to run around and play in any way they choose, which promotes independence and can be given the freedom and opportunity to be imaginative or creative in a stimulating environment. In my previous post, I emphasized the importance of play, and being in an environment where there are plenty of resources for the children to symbolize with, the children can spend a lot of time doing something they enjoy rather than sitting in the classroom/indoors. The national curriculum can be integrated into outdoor play, ensuring that even though the children are having fun, they are also keeping on topic. For example, a simple trip to the woods can include all areas of the NC,
Welsh – the children can learn the welsh names for their surroundings.
English – The language that is being used to describe the environment, and for the children to be able to describe them in an imaginative way (e.g. poem).
Mathematics – Counting sticks, or learning about a specific species’ population.
Science – The nature and creatures around them can be taught by the educator.

Through the use of different strategies we can incorporate most of the NC in one outdoor play session.
Children’s senses are stimulated within outdoor play, Fleming's theory on individual child’s learning styles (VARK) are covered by seeing and hearing their environment, and the activities and games helps the kinaesthetic learners to remain focused and to learn rather than sitting down in the classroom. In general, forest schools helps children to understand risks and how to approach them or deal with them, learn in new and exciting ways in an independent yet team-working way.

On a personal note, with my time spent as a teaching assistant at a local school for a few years, The children were always ecstatic to learn that they were having a lesson outside in the sun or rain, and every individual completed the task given by the teacher, whilst enjoying themselves.