Sharing Our Outdoor Learning and Forest School Ideas

Here at Goat Lees we are working hard on our outdoor learning area. Not only have we grown a wild meadow, dug a natural pond, built bird hides from old pallets, planted 10 native trees and 10 hedgerow shrubs for a micro-wood area but we also run our Forest School. We are very lucky to have a FSA (Forest School Association) qualified specialist teacher, Mr Phil Henry, from Bhundu Bushcraft regularly come in for one-to-one, small group and whole class sessions. He has also helped us expand and improve our Forest School area. Now our facilities are so good, we have been involved in a local project to encourage other schools to start their own Forest School area. So far, we have had two meetings where the Phil Henry with two staff members who maintain the outdoor learning areas and four pupils showed around teaching staff from other local primary schools to talk about what we have achieved and giving advice on how they could make use of the spaces they had available. We also shared resources for lessons and activities that encourage pupils to be more engaged with nature. This will now be an ongoing project where we liaise with other school in our local community to push the importance and benefits of outdoor learning.