Forest School

Forest School Lead: Karen Bowman (Horticulture Discover Pathway)

Engage:

The Engagement Pathway uses outdoor learning as a key approach to developing skills across all areas of learning through a balance of child-led exploration and weekly adult-led activities. Children are encouraged to follow their interests, investigate the natural environment, and engage in meaningful sensory experiences that promote communication, physical development, personal and social skills, problem-solving, creativity, and an understanding of the world around them. Adult-led sessions introduce new skills, concepts, and structured learning opportunities, while child-led outdoor play allows learners to practise, apply, and extend these skills in a motivating and purposeful way.

Explore:

The forest school curriculum includes activities and resources linked to each half termly topic. This can be based on a story, famous artist or the seasons! This enables our pupils to engage in the outdoors whilst linking this to the theme of the session.

Discover:

The forest school sessions are aimed for pupils within the discover pathway to work collaboratively with their peers using opportunities surrounding problem solving games, scavenger hunts, orienteering and creative activities. We encourage pupils at this level to engage in free play exploration, following the pupil’s interest to see how adventurous they are and what engages them in the woodland setting. During these sessions, we use the outdoors to develop relationships with adults and peers and make cross-curricular links where necessary, such as art and design, science and other areas of the curriculum.