What happens at a Forest School?

Kindling will work with your staff and children to develop and deliver a Forest Schools programme. Activity usually will take place weekly over a period of time but can be adapted to suit your client group.

What happens…?

Staff members will have already met our trained Forest School Practitioner. We will have established a good location for your group to use and arranged a time that we can take your group there regularly.

Complete Risk Assessments and Site Assessments will be carried out by us and agreed with your staff team. For the first session our trained practitioner will travel with the group to the woodland or other outdoor site and that is where the magic begins.

Sessions are child led, but may have a theme which can be linked to the National Curriculum or your own objectives. Children will be encouraged to discover, explore, observe and question what they find in the woods.

By being given responsibility for the woods, themselves and the group they are in, social and emotional development takes place as well as a growing attachment to their environment. We will set a number of small achievable tasks for them so their confidence increases over time.

The group will also review what they have learnt and experienced to help each child to see how they have developed. All adults present use aspirational language to encourage positive self esteem and decision making.

This process takes place over period of time usually twelve weeks, and works best with smaller groups of about twelve children.

But what will they actually do?

…make dens, explore tracks, lay trails, use simple hand tools to make wooden objects, build dens, cook on fires, create art, switch on their senses, play, climb, develop an understanding of the properties of earth, wood, water and stone, find wildlife, understand eco-systems, create and follow maps, learn bushcraft skills, stories and songs…..

…in all weathers and in all seasons.