Irene Tipping describes what they find
Edwinstowe Pre-school Playgroup in Nottinghamshire is capitalising on its location at the edge of the historic and beautiful Sherwood Forest by holding a weekly session in the woods.
Relocating to the forest every Tuesday morning has provided staff with an ingenious solution to both their accommodation and funding problems. The pre-school operates from the village hall for four mornings each week and offers a mothers and toddlers session on Tuesdays. This arrangement meant that the children were not receiving their full entitlement to five funded sessions and the playgroup was missing out on considerable amounts of funding.
It was inspiration, rather than desperation, however, that prompted the group to set up the forest pre-school as their fifth funded session.
Inspiration came initially from new staff member Michaela Gregory, who comes from Germany, where forest schools for the very young are well established.
Her enthusiasm and research into the subject soon convinced the rest of the team of the potential benefits of offering forest school provision. By last spring they had undertaken risk assessments, bought sun hats and acquired a small wheeled truck for transporting all the necessary equipment down to the woods.
At first parents and carers were bemused and, predictably, they asked, 'What will happen if it rains?'. The staff's cheerful and confident response was 'We will put our hoods up.'
Even more bemused were Ofsted officials when the playgroup sought their approval. 'Where is the building?' they asked. 'We need a building to inspect. What is the address?' Finally, they told the group to do their own risk assessments of the forest and gave their plans the go-ahead.
Simple rules
Since then the forest pre-school has gone from strength to strength.
Parents' doubts were overcome by their children's enthusiasm. Now each week a group of up to ten three- and four-year-olds, supervised by two staff, enjoy exploring and learning in the forest. Planning and routines are kept simple and rules kept strictly to a minimum. The emphasis is on enjoyment, freedom and exploration.
Before entering the forest, the group stops for a briefing on appropriate behaviour. They practise running freely for a long distance while still listening and responding to the supervisor's call. They remind any newcomers of the three rules:
* no squidging
* no picking
* no putting anything in mouths.
Then they move into the forest, select an interesting area and encircle the space with a strip of builder's tape, so forming a largely symbolic, yet very effective, boundary.
The activities for a session might include:
* pretend play with friends in a hollow tree
* searching for acorns to fit into acorn cups
* observing ants as they scurry out of an old branch, carrying their eggs
* balancing on and swinging from low branches
* making patterns with leaves and twigs
* designing and building a home for Leggy the Spider with materials to hand.
The possibilities for play are as boundless as the children's imaginations.
The children initiate all the activities, while adults support and extend the activities when required.
Each session ends with circle time, when the children are eager to share with each other their observations and discoveries. It is easy to prove how any session covers all areas of learning in rich and meaningful ways.
The pre-school's indoor curriculum has also been enriched by the forest experience. They might take an old log back to the nursery to use as a seesaw; they pore over photographs taken in the forest, and share them with their parents. Their forest experiences add inspiration for their indoor play, whatever the theme or subjects.
Skills and memories
By last autumn, the group had raised enough funds to buy all-weather clothing and acquired a meeting place right at the edge of the forest to use should the weather be too dreadful.
They have never been rained off, and staff and children have made the most of all weathers. They have enjoyed squelching in puddles and rolling on wet grass in their 'firefighters suits', and delighted in making fresh criss-cross tracks on the one snowy morning.
The forest pre-school not only offers a broad and exciting range of learning experiences, it also develops skills, attitudes and memories that will last throughout these children's lives.
The staff's 'can-do' attitude and commonsense approach to risk assessment is extremely refreshing in these days when many groups are seriously limiting children's experience of their natural environment through a fearful overemphasis on danger and a tendency to overprotect.
The children of Edwinstowe Pre-school will be better able to assess and avoid risks in the future because they are learning how to play and explore safely within boundaries. They are also learning to respect their environment, which is bound to contribute towards their becoming responsible citizens in the future.
The pre-school's commitment and enthusiasm for forest schooling grow as they observe all the benefits to the children, and staff are keen to develop their project and to share their experiences with others.
Recently they invited the local day nursery to join them for a successful session and they are planning to explain their project at a cluster group of local Foundation Stage practitioners. Thanks to links with the forest ranger, the school nursery which most of the pre-school children go on to attend has now been funded to provide all-weather suits and the forest experience will be continued when the children start school.
Staff have applied for the Rolls Royce Science prize which, if they are successful, would enable them to extend the forest school, develop more ways of bringing the investigation and imagination inspired by the forest into pre-school sessions and further promote environmental education to other early years settings in Nottinghamshire.
Irene Tipping is a support teacher for Nottinghamshire EYDCP * For further information contact: Angela Uhphray, Edwinstowe Pre-school Playgroup, Village Hall, Mansfield Road, Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire NG21 9NJ, tel: 07989 892 831 (mornings only)
