Enabling Environments: Forest Schools: Part 4 - Down to the woods

Once practitioners have established the principles and intended outcomes for their Forest Schools programme, they can move on to consider how and what to plan for each of their weekly sessions. They need to consider how they will use the vast array of learning opportunities the woodland provides and enable children to explore this exciting new environment.

Approaches to planning may vary slightly from one programme to the next, but the starting point should always be the findings of the baseline assessment carried out during the first six weeks of the programme. The planning should follow the familiar cycle of observation, evaluation, assessment and planning, with its emphasis on child-initiated learning, the learning and developmental needs as well as interests of the individual child (see box).

No two programmes will be the same, as the planning is adapted for the benefit of the children's development. The programme unfolds with flexibility to follow their interests - for example, hide-and-seek has featured each session with a group of 12-year-olds for 14 weeks out of a 36-week programme because they had never been taught this kind of game when they were younger, and they gained greatly from its inclusion. We will begin to explore an example of how a 36-week programme might develop for nursery children, looking at the initial, middle and final stages.

WEEKLY SESSIONS

WEEKS 1-7

The initial phase of any programme is to establish the physical and behavioural boundaries while at forest school, so that the children can feel comfortable and confident in their learning and exploration as well as the practitioner beginning to demonstrate the opportunities and freedoms they have available to them in the woodland. Here we can teach the children boundary games, such as '1, 2, 3, where are you?' and hide and seek, during the first session in the woods and repeat these at the beginning of every session. Include stories, songs or games and a snack in each two-hour session of this initial part phase.

1. Pre-Forest Schools session - In the nursery, discuss with the children what they will do in the woods, show them pictures and videos of Forest School and maybe even introduce puppet characters that live in the woods, such as fairies or animals. The children try on waterproof suits and see how dirty they can get in the nursery garden. It is also a good idea to introduce '1, 2, 3 where are you?' while they are still in familiar surroundings.

2. Introduction to the woods - Focus on making the children feel safe and secure in this unfamiliar environment, and establish the boundary games.

3. Who lives in the woods? Walk around the woods to explore different habitats. Use binoculars to look at nests and magnifying glasses to look for minibeasts. Hunt for fairies or dragons and their houses to build a rich tapestry of imagination.

4. Get to know the woods - Review the previous week's exploration and introduce methods and equipment to collect and examine minibeasts. Revisit the fairy houses and urge the children to work together on a group shelter made from branches and leaves.

5. Make your own shelter - Review the previous week's shelter building. Encourage the children to find their favourite place in the woods and build a house for themselves, maybe using such stories as 'The Three Little Pigs' as a focus. The children can celebrate their new homes by eating their snacks in the houses that they have built.

6. Journey through the woods - Review the previous week's activities. Introduce new den-building equipment such as rope and tarpaulins. As a group, journey to the edge of the woods, leaving a trail to find your way back. Encourage the children to make journey sticks/crowns of leaves along the way. Set up a tarp tent. Have a snack and story, then encourage the children to follow the trail back to base camp on their own or in small groups.

7. Messy mud play - Review the previous session. Make mud to walk and jump in or use to paint the trees.

WEEKS 12 TO 18

As the weeks progress, nurseries can increase their session time from two to four hours, with the children having their lunch in the woods. Each session again starts with a review of the previous week's events, in which children explore what they did and what they would like to do that day. Free play also features in the early part of each session. By this stage the children can progress to using tools.

12. Make stick men using tools - Ropes, tarpaulins, wheeled carts and sledges, and bug collecting equipment are all available at the site for the children to access in their free play. Share Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler and encourage the children to make their own Stick Man using a bow saw to cut wood to size and then a bill hook to split pieces to make arms and legs. Discuss how to stay safe and to use tools with care and give clear demonstrations, initially having each child work with a practitioner the first time they use the tools. Define an area for tool use, which children can access as and when they please, where a practitioner is there to assist them. Plan child-led storytelling/singing/performance for the other children not engaged in making the Stick Man.

13. Make stick men using tools - Engage new parent helpers and explain the boundary rules and games. Sing songs and play a catching game to allow the helpers to become part of the group. Review the previous week's session with the bow saw and talk about how to use the tool safely. Demonstrate how to use the bill hook and encourage the children to take turns in using it. Dig lots of clay out of the ground for the children to use in their free play. Prepare a cutting and splitting area for children to access to continue making their Stick Man, with adult supervision at all times.

14. Make stick men using tools - Review the children's use of the bow saw and bill hook. Introduce a hand drill to enable them to make holes in their pieces of wood so they can put their Stick Man together. Two practitioners man the tools area. Children who have finished their stick men are shown how to make a simple car using the cutting, splitting and drilling techniques used in previous sessions.

15. Extend colours topic being studied at nursery setting - Review how to use all the tools that have been introduced in the previous few weeks. During free play time, provide access to a tools area manned by two practitioners. Explore natural pigments found in the woods. Using pieces of calico, examine colours found in grass, leaves, mud, charcoal or stone by crushing them and either rubbing them on to it or by making paints with a little water added to the pulp. Children can then make their pictures, show them to the rest of the group.

16. Extend the tools and natural pigment session - Review the tools and artwork from the previous week. Hang a huge piece of calico between the trees and encourage the children to make a piece of collective artwork. Provide stepladders so they can reach the top of the material. Begin work on a bird hide, so children can practise their new skills in using the bow saw to cut wood to the sizes they require for the project. As before, have a staff member to man the tools area.

17. Extend the tools and natural pigment sessions - Provide an open session in which children can revisit and extend the skills and activities of the previous few weeks, such as taking part in the bird hide project or making new things with their tools.

18. Make natural pigments/fires - The previous weeks' activities can lead on to fire-making and activities such as boiling nettles, wild garlic, onions and so on to make pigments.

The next part of the series will cover how we could incorporate fire lighting and discuss the final phases of the 36-week programme

SESSION PLANNING CHECKLIST

Use the following questions to help you plan the sessions within your Forest Schools programme.

• What are the outcomes for the session, for the group and for individual children?

• What, if there is one, is your theme? How will this be developed?

• What opportunities are you going to provide?

• What sequence will they follow?

• Will they have a logical build-up of understanding for the learner?

• How will you ensure that your children are hooked and motivated?

• What learning methods or which pedagogical approaches will the session involve?

• How will the sequence of opportunities affect the energy flows?

Review

• How will your learners remember their learning?

• Will you ensure reflection and transfer?

• How will you evaluate whether the outcomes have been met?

CASE STUDY: REFLECTIONS NURSERY, WORTHING

Reflections Nursery in Worthing has operated a Forest School programme since October 2009, writes nursery owner and Forest Schools lead practitioner, Martin Pace.

Two groups of 12 children aged three and four years enjoy a three-hour session in local woodland each week. The children go in all weathers and the programme is run over 30 sessions, giving children the opportunity to develop skills, knowledge and an affinity with the woodland.

Reflections Nursery draws its inspiration from the pre-schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, and several staff members have attended study tours there. Three of the Forest School team have been trained by Archimedes Training and, as lead practitioner, I have also visited forest schools on a study tour in Denmark. The sessions in the woodland are designed to be child-led and the adult's role is to support children's independence wherever possible.

Reflections' practitioners relate that children develop in confidence during the programme, particularly in physical, emotional and social competency. Their problem-solving and teamwork significantly develop and they acquire an understanding of, and respect for, nature.

Of particular note is the development of their physical competencies. Many children begin the programme occasionally stumbling in the woodland and unaware of their climbing, jumping and balancing abilities. After only a few sessions they develop considerable confidence, climbing fallen trees and jumping off and building bridges to traverse ditches, at first on hands and knees and later by balancing. All children quickly master hanging from low branches, and many become adept on the rope swing.

Children also develop skills inspired by the provocation of the woodland, such as lighting fires and using a bow saw. These skills are often followed by a sense of triumph, giving children the enthusiasm to return to the woodland, and a real confidence in their own abilities.

Reflections' practitioners also comment on how children develop their own strategies for dealing with any anxiety in the forest. Two children, Adam and Angus, often asked to hold an adult's hand in the woodland in the early sessions. After a few weeks they were walking together in the woodland, and Adam decided he was a giant. Angus continued this idea and said they were 'scary giants'. This association gave both children the courage to explore the woodland independently from then on.

Practitioners have also noted how bonds of existing friendships are deepened and new relationships developed. They find that the forest environment presents children with significant opportunities to work as a team, and practitioners can cite countless examples of children den-building with long branches which have needed several or all of them to co-operate. They often sang 'Team-work, team-work' together as they would weave a long branch through the dense woodland.

For more information about the Reflections Forest School Programme go to: www.reflectionsnurseries.co.uk