What is Forest School?

Forest School is an inspirational process, that offers ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a woodland or natural environment with trees.

Forest School is a specialised learning approach that sits within and complements the wider context of outdoor and woodland education.

The ethos is shared by thousands of trained practitioners across the UK and beyond. Its roots reach back to early years pioneers in outdoor learning and across the sea to Scandinavia.

At Forest School all participants are viewed as:

• equal, unique and valuable
• competent to explore & discover
• entitled to experience appropriate risk and challenge
• entitled to choose, and to initiate and drive their own learning and development
• entitled to experience regular success
• entitled to develop positive relationships with themselves and other people
• entitled to develop a strong, positive relationship with their natural world

This learner-centred approach interweaves with the ever-changing moods and marvels, potential and challenges of the natural world through the seasons to fill every Forest School session and programme with discovery and difference. Yet each programme does also share a common set of principles, aimed at ensuring that all learners experience the cumulative and lasting benefits that quality Forest School offers

(Taken from FSA website)

What is our Ethos?

At Unstone Schools Federation, all children and adults have:

The Right to Learn

The Right to be Heard

The Right to feel Safe

Forest Schools gives all children access to these rights

The Right to Learn

Learning is not just about academia.  Life skills are far more important, and children should be given the opportunity to try out ideas, to fail, to be resilient enough to try again, to share their learning with others and to create without the usual constraints.  Children lose the ability to think and experiment freely as they grow older, and much of this is to do with the outdated model of education that we still adhere to.  Forest schools breaks down the barriers that are built by being taught to learn using the enlightenment system and allows them to embrace the way that nature survives through adapting and improving ideas. Every child has the right to learn in the way that suits them.

The Right to be Heard

Life is made up of relationships, both good and not so good. If children are given the opportunity to work together to create and build, they are also given the opportunity to build up the skills that are needed for teamwork. Knowing when to be a leader and when to be a team player, learning how to share ideas but also listen to the ideas of others, communicating clearly so that ideas are not ‘lost in translation’ and being able to evaluate and celebrate achievements with their peers. Every child has the right to be heard, but also to hear.

The Right to feel Safe

Working with fire, saws, trees, knives, cooking pots and billhooks seems from the outset a risky list of activities to do with children, however it is through allowing children to learn about their own safety and risk management that we keep them safe. Children who can legitimately decide whether they can safely achieve a goal, be it cutting some wood or climbing a tree are much safer than those who blindly leap into risky situations unaware of the dangers.  Forest Schools ensures that children are equipped with the knowledge and skills to use all the above safely. This means that children can risk-take within a safe environment therefore developing their right to feel safe.