Forest School Oct 10th

Posted 12/10/2016 10:10 : By: EdKenyon

Play is such an integral piece of the learning jigsaw for children. It would seem to be at its most powerful when that 'play' is using nature as a canvas and the child's imagination as the brush-strokes - all instigated and developed by the child. The adult's role is to question and facilitate; to try and understand what is driving the child's behaviour and actions, so that we can help to deepen their experience by enabling the child to take whatever it is they are fascinated by that little bit further.

With each visit to our Forest School, set deep in the woods, we are seeing our group of children take more and more responsibility for their own time and actions. Some are fairly small things on the face of it, yet they shine a light on how the children's thought processes are developing as they become more confident in the woods - both individually and as a group. For example, most weeks Charlie, Niki or I need to pull the trolley full of our camp equipment. There's normally a willing helper or two but we sometimes have to ask. On Monday, and without any input from adults, the children took responsibility for the trolley themselves - pulling, pushing, steering, sometimes with as many as four or five of them at a time. Turns were taken to pull the main handle and they were absorbed by their task, chatting and directing each other with not a glance at an adult for most of the way. Indeed, they were quite put out when we tried to help them up one of the steeper sections of path (important reminder for us adults there! Take the time to help them do it for themselves, rather than seeking the adult-focused quick solution).

Children are, if we allow them to be, hugely capable of discovering the world around them. It's about giving them the right environment and the right level of support - not too suffocating, but so they know it's there if they need it. It's also fascinating to observe how children are drawn in by different stimuli and how group dynamics and social interactions can play a part. Our current group is showing only a passing interest in what had been hugely important 'totems' of Forest School - The Ogre and the Treasure Tree. One or two of the children might go over to where The Ogre's House had stood and look around and ask a question. Some of them still go the Treasure Tree and fish out the geocache box to have a rootle through - but this group is forging its own path.

We have never before spent such a long time exploring a fallen tree and its surroundings as we did on Monday. They climbed, they balanced, they jumped, they looked, they collected, they dug - on their own, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in a larger group, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly. Insects were found and marvelled at; sticks were collected and banged against tree trunks ("I can make music!"); different coloured leaves were collected, 'mud stew' was mashed up, slugs were searched for ("what's this one?") and a little 'house' was found at the base of a tree (see the video on Facebook). They were free to express themselves through engaging with the natural world they were immersed in. Charlie, Niki and I thought we should perhaps move on to our camp, but we decided to allow the children to set the pace. If they were getting hungry, they would tell us. So, we tried to intervene as little as possible; blending into the background - retrieving the occasional lost wellington boot from under a log; encouraging a hesitant 'jumper' from the end of the log, but this was very much their time.

The children now lead the way in the woods. "Which way is our camp?" we ask. "This way!" One says confidently, pointing in a direction we have not been before. "No, it's this way!" Say two others with real conviction and so off we go, still with the children pulling the trolley. The children were delighted to find our firewood cache from last time still hidden safely from sight and covered with the camouflage tarp - some of them wanted to touch the wood underneath just to check that it was still dry!

After lunch they continued to explore our immediate surroundings. There are some wonderful young multi-trunk trees which the children love piling into and clambering around - they make wonderful houses, prisons, castles - the children clinging to the trunks like koalas. This group really likes to climb and then hotch themselves along fallen tree trunks. There is one right by our camp which is quite challenging for them to get up on to as the bark is smooth and slippery. We could see they were becoming frustrated and they were asking for more and more help. So, in order to allow them to do as much as possible themselves, we cut two small 'steps' into the tree trunk so they could get a toe hold and pull themselves up without the need for adult intervention - so much more satisfying for them! They were fascinated by the sawing. "It's making snow!" said one, pointing at the sawdust. That is a task that we will build up to with this group, but I have no doubt that they will be up to the challenge!