Forest School
With the recent explosion of technology permeating our daily existence, and the ever-growing academic focus of traditional educational institutions, Forest School offers an alternate focus to balance these trends.
Forest School, or Bush School, as it can be referred to in Australia, provides opportunities for children to self-direct their focus, self-asses risks, and experience situations that allow them to grow into functional adults.
There has been a recent educational trend to get toddlers ‘school ready’. Many kindergartens expect all students of 2, 3 and 4 years to sit and listen at the same time, and to all do the same activity. If a child is distracted or non-compliant they are reprimanded and disciplined. The goal is that these toddlers will be better prepared to ‘learn’ when they get to Prep and Primary. There is plenty of evidence to suggest it doesn’t work, and, the consequences of this approach are that these children lose personal initiative to explore their interests as they arise. Sure, at this age, it may be a choice between playing in the sand pit, or painting, or cars or dress-ups, but those foundations are the ones that develop individual character.
Primary school often sees children continually limited by areas that are out of bounds, (which can be an imaginary line to separate preps from 1’s and 1’s from 2’s). Physical activity is limited during recess and lunch. Outdoor education is minimal, as there is an expectation that the best learning happens with a controlled classroom environment and resources.
As they grow, the education they receive is geared towards the testable results of Naplan, with the idea that literacy and numeracy are the sole keys to personal success. Naplan has been integrated into our educational system for long enough to have meaningful data to research, and although these results are showing overall declines in student ability, despite them having such a considerable amount of classroom time, there is a reluctance to change focus by policy makers as if they were admitting they had ‘gotten it wrong’. New Zealand on the other hand, which for all purposes is very comparable to Australia, had their Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern happily say “It didn’t work, let’s try something new”.
The actual skills that make functional adults are many and varied, and are in fact a mix unique to each person. They key is that we are all different. There are sporty kids, math kids, drama kids, creative kids, and all sorts of kids… just like there are all sorts of adults. It is not just the adults who are good at words and numbers that are successful.
The actual traits of successful adults are effective communication, teamwork, leadership, passion, creative thought, critical thinking, determination, flexibility, etc. But these skills are hard to teach in a classroom. They are concepts that are best explored through experience. These experiences are most effective when a child faces them at the time when they are ready for it. And that is what is so wonderful about forest school.
“Forest School” is how children from the dawn of time first experienced the world around them. In its current form, it is credited to the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland and Norway. The concept behind it is surprising simple.
Children are given the opportunity to explore their own interests, (self-directed learning), and for the most part are given free-reign to do so. In that process, they are responsible for assessing their own ability to face risks. The integration of this learning style with the natural environment is that the uncontrolled setting provides greater opportunity for a variety of experiences to occur.
Please follow this example to see those theories in practice. It is from my first actual Forest School exposure, which occurred during my Forest School Leader training course. We went to a local primary school to observe a group of 30 students explore the creek that ran behind their oval. The area was fenced, overgrown, and usually out of bounds.
The leader set the perimeters of play, which was about 60 meters long, and by the natural gradient of the creek beds, which where about 20 meters wide. The students knew they were in the space for 1 hour… and that was it. From there, as best as possible, the teachers were only to observe. They did wander through the site to answer any questions if they arose, and to curve any extreme safety threats.
Some children sat passively to look at flowers; some ran through the creek bed screaming. One decided he wanted to build a cubby house. I continued to observe him. In the process that followed, he told one boy to help him who didn’t want to. He asked someone else, and got them interested by telling them how good it would be. He had to compromise on the spot, as someone suggested it would be better closer to the creek. He had to rally extra support to carry a big log from the creek, and take a longer route when the direct one was too steep and he slipped. Several worked together to figure out how they would position the big log and build the cubby. Other children drifted in and out of his experience. He was about half way through when the session ended. It was obvious he was reluctant to leave.
In that simple experience he had the creative thought to come up with the idea. He learnt how to be an effective leader, and to listen to his team, and compromise his vision, and plan systems of operation, and to monitor his safety and others. Because he didn’t finish, he experienced failure, and, until he got to do his weekly Forest School hour the following week, would learn patience and know what it’s like to live with passion. There were squabbles, and backward steps, and ideas that didn’t work out. But I can imagine him sitting in his cubby with his friends the following week feeling so proud of himself.
That was his experience. 29 other children were on a journey of their own. The teacher did very little, and each child learnt so much.
When I was a child, those were the types of experiences and interactions I had after school and on weekends with the kids in my street. But times have changed as schedules are busier, connection with technology occupies more hours, we have become a risk-adverse society, and it’s not generally acceptable for kids of primary age to roam the streets freely as I did.
The times have changed, but the needs of children haven’t. The bureaucrats behind the current educational system chose the academic path, and despite the documented failings are reluctant to change. The interest in and application of Forest School environments are the counter trend, and will continue to grow. Forest School settings provide the opportunity for children to explore the many valuable life lessons that make functional adults that can’t be taught from a book.
My Forest School Leader Training
I was among the first group of students (as the only male!) to study to become a Level 3 Forest School Leader in Australia. This happened in October of 2016 and was run by the Forest School Learning Initiative who are a UK based organisation.
Chris Dee of FSLI explains, “The project has been many months in the planning, so that our training is tailored to support the Australian early years learning framework and primary curriculum. We’ve also had to think about a different natural environment to the UK – with poisonous snakes and spiders being a greater health and safety issue, and fire legislation being another.
We’ve been researching Australian flora and fauna, thinking about your ecological structures and settings, with a view to helping our Australian students to manage the areas they use for Forest School.”
The FSLI website states that Forest School is an inspirational process, offering children and young people opportunities to achieve, developing confidence and self-esteem, through hands on learning experiences in a local woodland environment. Forest School is a long-term approach to education, for children, young people, families and adults, which maximises the benefits of learning in the outdoors.
I am now a proud pioneer helping to introduce the Forest School Ethos into practical Early Years, Primary, and Home School settings here in Australia.
Forest School Association
There is also a governing body for Forest School activities – called the Forest School Association.
They share the Principles of Forest School on their website, with links to more detailed information.
- Forest School is a long-term process of regular sessions, rather than a one-off or infrequent visits; the cycle of planning, observation, adaptation and review links each session.
- Forest School takes place in a woodland or natural environment to support the development of a relationship between the learner and the natural world.
- Forest School uses a range of learner-centred processes to create a community for being, development and learning.
- Forest School aims to promote the holistic development of all those involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.
- Forest School offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves.
- Forest School is run by qualified Forest School practitioners who continuously maintain and develop their professional practice.
Nature Play
I was drawn to Forest School because of my established connection with Nature Play. I had been running ‘natural adventures’ for several years, for 5 regional councils close to me; Gold Coast, Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich and Redlands. On these adventures I would have groups of 30 children and their parents for 2 hours in a natural setting. We would explore the environment, talk about the plants and animals that would live there, think about the history and future of the space, as well as a variety of activities and games to connect the children to nature. I would promote in a number of ways, but “I create amazing play experiences that connect children to the natural world, and teach them about the wonders of life,” pretty much sums them up.
Although each of my natural adventures was different, because of the location, or weather, or ages and abilities of the children who turned up, (and spontaneous tangents!) it was still primarily a ‘me-directed’ program. I had developed the games and activities and format by myself. I was drawn to study Forest School as I wanted to explore the application of child-directed activities in a structure that had been developed over time by experts.
Here I am with Anya Perkins from Nature Play QLD who was instrumental in bringing Forest School education to Australia as she had studied it in her homeland, and making a mobile out of found materials.
Forest School Kindergartens
Dateline on SBS Television put together a great 11 minute video on Forest Kindergartens in Denmark. Children are running wild in the mud, climbing high into trees and playing with knives, but that is what they are encouraged to do. The approach to child safety sounds dangerously devil-may-care, but it’s not what it seems. Children learn to take small risks when they’re very young and as they grow in confidence, they take bigger risks.
Please click Kids Gone Wild to view.
