The outdoor environment promotes emotional well-being, social skills and team building.
The children learn that responsibility is a vital skill. Trust amongst peers to use tools safely. Engaging in an outdoor classroom brings the skill of resilience and independence.
There is no wrong or right way, child centred learning that is unhurried and very hands on.
Use own initiative co-operate with others, share and listen to ideas.
As Lindon, 2011 states ‘All children deserve to be encouraged to stretch themselves a little beyond their current comfort zone.’
Forest school sites are rich, varied and an ever changing resource. Natural resources provide ‘props’ for role-play and essential building materials for dens and hideaways.
Children can experiment with their own ever growing size and strength, setting themselves physical challenges which at home they may not have the space or freedom from over cautious parents. The forest school sessions bring less restriction and more appreciation for their abilities. It stimulates the need to explore, experiment and investigate their surroundings
‘ …greenery is important for lifting the human spirit, and it seems particularly important for children’
(Palmer, 2006)
Gibson,(1979) discusses the benefits of affordances in an outside environment. The concept of affordances was developed by Gibson to explain the opportunities available through natural and environmental resources. The environment will effect the way a child plays in both a positive and negative way.
Forest Schools meet the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage through the four outcomes.(Department of Education, 2014) All children learn in their own time and preferred style, each child is unique. Forest Schools provide opportunity for Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic learners. Activities are flexible and open ended, enabling all children to achieve a degree of challenge, encouraging perseverance.
Another outcome within the EYFS is positive relationships. Children learn to be responsible for themselves and others. Develop their sense of self preservation. The natural environment can be a calming and reassuring place. We should not under estimate the impact this can have on children’s behaviour.
The forest school site is less restrictive than the classroom, this enables confidence and exploration. It gives the children opportunity to develop their safety awareness and take control in enabling environments.
Children are at their best when they are engaged in practical, active learning. Asking questions ‘what can I do with this?’ or ‘How can I do this?’. Exploration is at the very heart of learning, children can discover new ways to approach an activity, make links and connections. They are supported by the adult to think critically, to assist their learning and development.
This leads on to the Characteristics of Effective Learning (Department of Education, 2014)
Playing and Exploring- Acting out experiences, playing with objects that they know.Encouraging a ’can do’ attitude, taking risks and trying new things-learning by trial and error. Using senses, initiating activities
Active Learning- Pleased to meet own goals, stay focussed for long periods, pay attention to details Bounce back after difficulties-even when challenges arise.
Creating and thinking critically- Children establish deep thought and critical thinking skills. Have own ideas and make links and predictions. Notice patterns, change approach to an activity and solve problems.
Freedom to explore, challenge themselves and experience risks in a safe space with appropriate supervision. Risks are assessed and managed but not completely taken away. No adults interfering, but on hand to assist and support the children’s ideas. Acting as facilitators and actively observing play.
When children play outdoors they:
Explore using their senses
Show appreciation for the beauty of nature and investigate it in all its forms.
Burn more calories
Master physical skills
Make observations and predictions
Learn to make decisions
Negotiate and co-operate
Every child is included, builds self-confidence and raises their self-esteem within the group.
Obvious links to prime areas physical development and understanding the world but the Forest school experience is essentially holistic.
All intertwined and weave in and out of each other. Holistic approach to learning which has been influenced through early theorists Comenius, Dewey, Froebel and Montessori. Forest School is simply an old idea re shaped for current lifestyles and curriculum demands. Social policy has been pushing towards this way of learning since 2008.
Personal Social Emotional Development-making relationships, managing feelings and behaviour, confidence and taking charge of own learning.
Communication and Language-chances to listen to sounds, identify what they can hear. Demonstrate their understanding of following rules and boundaries, stayingsafe at Forest School. Encourages communication with peers and adults when using tools and working together. They can share what they have enjoyed or disliked with the group.
Physical Development-Build up strength, negotiate the ground, different surfaces and terrains. Running, jumping, digging, climbing and balancing. Using tools and moving objects. Awareness of boundaries and identifying risk.
Literacy-mark making in mud, clay. Reading and telling stories, re-enacting familiar stories
Mathematics-Lots of opportunities for counting, problem solving, sorting. Exploring Shape, space and measure using natural resources found in the wood-leaves, twigs, flowers, and stones.
Understanding the World- Forest School gives each child the opportunity to find out more about living things and change.
Expressive Arts and Design-imagination to build dens using branches and twigs.Music making using immediate surroundings, small world play landscapes and homes.
Take our learning and experiences back into setting- for example: Mini beast hunting at Forest School -extend and develop into making a bug hotel in setting/long term projects like aspects of the Reggio Approach
Negatives – lost in translation?-UK forest schools accommodate the British attitudes- the outdoors not part of everyday life as in Denmark/Sweden, not as much risk and freedom.
‘Spending time outdoors provides 25 percent more oxygen for the brain development and learning than staying indoors’ (Long, 2014)
“The best classroom and the richest cupboard is roofed only by sky”
(Margaret McMillan)
Moore, (1989), believes space should maximise opportunities to move in different ways. Children benefit from the Forest School approach to risks and challenge within play. The differing of surface, textures and surroundings all add to the experience of environmental play. Additionally Derr (2002), recommends that natural space should offer child scale experiences of self-initiated play. This could include risk and adventure, exploration and rites of passage. It is indicated in Clements’ (2004) study that children today spend less time playing outdoors than their mothers did as children.
In comparison an adventure playground consists of man- made materials and is not very adaptable. Designed by adults with little or no input of the child’s voice. Play can be very static, and not open ended without choices, or the opportunity to explore ideas and create own dens or shelters, using natural resources or loose parts. There is undeniably limited scope for risk taking.
Risk is all but taken away, and the increase of many after school play provisions children are not getting adequate outdoor play, natural or otherwise. Fears of increased risk to children ‘playing out’, increased traffic on the roads and ‘stranger danger’, parents are risk adverse with media playing a large role in this.
The development of Danish Architect Carl Theodor Sorensen’s idea of the ‘Junk playground’ in 1943, brought us the first play space to occupy children and give ‘delinquent’ , with the English later re naming as the Adventure Playground. It consisted of a more varied and challenging selection of resources compared to today’s typical playground. Construction materials and old disused household objects gave children the essential ‘tools’ to build, demolish and re build. Giving meaning and purpose to their play and ideas. As in Forest Schools of the current day a play supervisor was employed but did not assume authority, stating that the initiative must come from the children themselves and I that he could not, and will not teach the children anything.
Adults needs to be facilitators not teachers, supporting the children in play to extend and develop their own ideas. Vygotsky’s theory Zone of Proximal Development explains how the adult will identify the gap between knowing what a child can do alone and when they may need help from someone more skilled or experienced.
“Stand aside for a while and leave room for learning, observe carefully what children do, and then, if you have understood well, perhaps teaching will be different from before.”
(Loris Malaguzzi)
If playgrounds offered more greenery, loose parts, bushes and varied topography children would have more opportunity to reinforce ideas with their surroundings, offering lots of opportunities and uses. Sutton- Smith (1990) stated in Nabhan and Trimble (1994:9) that children would benefit from more smells, tastes, splinters and accidents. Children need space to claim as their own ‘‘territory, and children ‘make do’- finding that space to meet their own needs.
Kelly Stevens