Forest School Intent

At Fleet Infant School, our Forest School aims to promote the holistic development of all involved, fostering resilient, confident, self-esteem, independent and creative learners.  This complements our school values and learning behaviours.

We aim to allow pupils to instigate, investigate, test and be curious about the world around them, allowing for all pupils to participate and succeed within the activities.  Forest school teaches the children to manage their play boundaries and evaluate risks through exploring the natural world.

These are all character traits that children at Fleet Infant School have been identified as needing to be improved in order fulfil our mission/vision statement - children who are prepared and inspired for the modern world.

We have the perfect environment on our site which is currently under used- heathland and ponds by the school and the wider heathland.

Children at Fleet Infant school will be starting their Outdoor learning journey using Forest school principals from November 2021, reaching full Forest School by September 2022. We have created our own little Forest school situated on the Heathland which is adjacent to our reception playground. Here the children will learn woodland crafts and take part in outdoor games and activities. They will climb trees, make dens, or simply explore the environment and invent their own games. The children will learn about the beauty of nature and how important it is to respect their environment and take care of it.

“Play is the highest form of research” Albert Einstein

Implementation

The children will have access to many different activities and will be encouraged to become independent learner who are happy to explore their own ideas and interests, but also try out new ideas, of which some will work and other will not!

Some of the activities we do at Forest School are:

• Playing games and singing songs
• Woodland crafts including wool, clay, and other natural objects
• Den building
• Studying wildlife and creating habitats
• Sensory activities
• Rope and string work including learning new knots
• Listening to stories and using these ideas in our play
• Woodland management
• Using our natural environment as a tool to provide us with the resources we need to complete different tasks e.g. natural paint

And later on (from September 2022) we will also include:

• Fire lighting and cooking on an open fire
• Tool use
• Sculpturing
• More advanced den building and woodland skills

Impact

During Forest Schools, children should be learning how to be respectful to our natural environment and know that they have ownership over the place they live and play in.

We measure the impact of Forest School through photographic evidence (see our Forest School scrapbook in the reception area by the front door) and through listening to our children as they talk about their learning. We will also look at the children’s resilience both in forest school and back in the classroom and the children’s willingness to try out new ideas individually and with their peers.

During the first half of the spring term, the children will continue with their topic of trees with a huge emphasis on communication and language.  These sessions may be adapted or changed, depending on the conditions underfoot.

Week 1 - Maintenance and setting up obstacle course - looking at distances between trees and ground terrain.

Week 2 - Blindfold game, hug a tree to deepen understanding of different tree barks

Week 3 - Set up fairy area and learn that we can use trees and wood to make useful items.

Week 4 - Story time - make up stories from chosen nature items e.g. a pinecone might be a hairbrush for a fairy, leaf might be a blanket for a slug

Week 5 - Make tree spirits out of clay

Week 6 - Maintenance

We will also have tree stars being made under the shelter and lots of games and storytimes. 

Happy Outdoor Learning!