More and more settings are claiming Forest School is part of their offering. But how do you ensure it is more than just a marketing gimmick? Meredith Jones Russell reports

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It is really, really hard to understand what Forest School is,’ says Mark Sackville-Ford, senior lecturer in education at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and co-editor of Critical Issues in Forest Schools. ‘I think of it as an ethos. It makes you feel something inside. Until you do it, you can’t understand it.’

Introduced to the UK from Scandinavia in the 1990s, Forest School has become a hugely popular label for settings to apply to their provision. However, there is a huge amount of variance in its practice, with Mel McCree, senior lecturer at Bath Spa University, describing provision which lacks some or even all the principles of Forest School as ‘Forest School lite’.

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