July update

Our Friday sessions of Forest School, led by Ange and Lou have continued. The children have had lots of fun and Ange and Lou have been carefully facilitating play. Some of the things the children have been doing are lighting fires (sometimes in volcanoes), putting up rope swings, using tools, helping with cooking, digging in the ditch and exploring the pond.

I have been continuing my Forest School course. In March and again in June, I was back in the woods near Lawshall with other people on my Green Light Trust course. We found out more about learning theories such as those expressed by Maslow, Piaget and Vygotsky and thought about how these link to the principles of Forest School. We learned more about the importance of play and risk taking in children's learning and development.  We explored the  benefits of Forest School for children's holistic development including the social, physical,intellectual, creative and cognitive, emotional and spiritual benefits. We really started to understand how much research and theory underpins Forest School and just how much the sessions can benefit everyone. 


We learned more about the risk assessments that we will do on our Forest School site. I am now writing risk assessments for this  and the regular activities we will do. I will complete a risk assessment before each session too after checking the site and will be making dynamic risk assessments throughout the day. We discussed creating a handbook which will be a reference and in depth guide for all adults involved in the sessions at Bressingham Forest School and the ethos of it. I am writing it now and it includes the history of Forest School, ecological impact plans, a three year management plan and the roles to the Forest School leader and volunteers. 


In the forest, we also learned some new practical skills including putting up swings and rope bridges in the trees, building different shelters, making a spatula, using a auger and viking weaving. We had a delicious bake off too.We had to make and light a fire and then cook a starter, main course and pudding. It was a real feast as we had deep fried nettles and cleaver, followed by nettle soup, flat bread flavoured with herbs and for desert, we had dropped scones with elderflower syrup and elderflower fritters! 

Now, I am planning a six session block of Forest School for children in Reception. I plan to deliver this in the the Autumn term and my tutor from the Green Light Trust will come out for one of the sessions to assess me as a Forest School Leader.

I have had lots of help with getting our site ready at Bressingham Forest School.
In March, a really hard working group of parents came to help plant our free hedging from the Woodland Trust. Another weekend, Mrs Porter and I went up to Westacre near Kings Lynn to a woodland where we were allowed to coppice some hazel. We had a real adventure including getting the car stuck in the mud when it was full of wood but we came back to school with a supply of poles for den making, branches for disc slices, craftwork and for firewood. I have been researching the possibilities of improving our pond in the woodland area. It would be so useful to make it a really accessible dipping pond but also create a habitat that will bring in more wildlife. We had a great response to a plea for second hand resources and I will be gathering some more things that we will need and applying again for grants to fund this. 

We hope that when Reception class children have had their blocks of Forest School then we we will be able to make Forest School available to more groups of children at Bressingham. These may be half classes in order to keep ratios of adults to children high.We also need to keep reconsidering the ecological impact of us being in the woodland area and the need to mitigate this.

Thank-you for following my Forest School training  journey so far. I am really looking forward to getting all the paperwork done so that I can start facilitating lots of Forest School sessions in addition to the sessions that Ange and Lou already organise.