Development

Development

In 2017, Miss Wilcox, Mrs Malloy and a group of Year 6 children set up our forest school area on the school field. This was a huge task and took lots of effort from everyone involved. What started off as a grassy area in the corner of the school field soon evolved into an exciting outdoor area which enables our children to participate in engaging, motivating and achieveable tasks and actvities in a fabulous woodland environment.

Miss Wilcox is our Forest School Leader who is responsible for the planning, delivery and risk assessments and is also qualified as an outdoor paediatric first aider.

The philosophy of Forest Schools is to encourage and inspire individuals, of any age, to enjoy the opportunities offered by natural play, through positive outdoor experiences. Through these experiences, our children have the opportunity to develop intrinsic motivation, balanced emotional and social skills. These, through self awareness, can be developed to help reach personal potential. The Forest Schools philosophy has demonstrated success with children of all ages, where, through play and self-directed learning, they have the opportunity to learn about the natural environment, how to handle risks and most importantly, how to use their own initiative to solve problems and co-operate with others.

Our children access the outdoor environment in all kinds of weather (except for high winds). While outside, they use full sized tools, play, learn boundaries of behaviour, establish and grow in confidence and self-esteem, and become more self-motivated.