What use is a forest school?

It was my privilege last week to spend some time outside with 3 and 4 year old pupils at Notre Dame Forest School. This initiative, guided by Forest School Leader Ms Stephens, and the rest of the Owls Team, allows our BlueBelles Nursery pupils to spend time in the environment learning not only new skills and concepts, but developing their relationship with the world. This chimed with my blog last week about the importance of using guided experiences to allow us to grow as whole people.

The little children I joined were happy, fully engaged, interested, inquisitive and bubbling with enthusiasm. They commandeered me to paint mud onto the trees with them and showed me the bugs they had swept up, gently into cups to examine. I was surprised at their sophistication, gathering tiny fragments from around them to make fairy houses, and their ability to explain what they were doing. I felt a pull from my own happy childhood, where I learned to be creative through a freedom to explore. These children are lucky indeed.

Most children spend a great deal of their educational lives indoors, only being allowed out to ‘play’. This is appropriate if we believe that learning can only take place under certain conditions, if we think that a teacher has to push knowledge into a child in a sterile environment. However, we now understand far more about the growth of children’s brains, and are beginning to understand that intelligence develops through activity, making connections, creative inspiration and rehearsal. Creativity is never nurtured best in confined conditions, and inspiration rarely strikes if prescribed outcomes are valued above great ideas. Connections certainly cannot be made for them, instead of by then, if they are to have real meaning, and it is only possible to rehearse what is already understood. That is not to say that class based learning is outdated, it still plays the major part, and much can be taught and learnt by conventional means, but there is more…..and practical activities such as camping, forest skills, Duke of Edinburgh awards and environmental studies can extend potential by "encouraging and inspiring individuals through positive outdoor experiences" as the Forest Schools do.

In the future school leaders will increasingly accept that creativity is vital to the formation of human beings and to the future of society, and that it is generated not by the training of fixed outcomes but by open ended experiences. None of us can be sure what the future will hold, nor what will happen to the shape of examinations in the next ten years, nor to the world of work or even to society in general, but those children who have developed resilience, interest, inspiration and independence, outside, in the beauty and complexity of creation, will have the advantage over the rest of us.

Now put down this computer and go outside for a walk.

Wildfire Learning

Recent bushfires in Australia illustrate how quickly and uncontrollably fire can spread from the tiniest spark. This is both awesome and terrifying. However, if the same is applied to learning, and a surge of knowledge, questioning or understanding spreads through a classroom, generating ideas, interest, enthusiasm and greater or new understanding, then it is exciting for both pupils and teachers, and makes the job of learning a far more meaningful and manageable activity.

Children learn in many ways: they learn best from hands-on experience, and at school this translates into activities and progressive tasks that enable them to gain, master, rehearse and hopefully have ready at their disposal, the skills and knowledge that we want them to have.

Children also learn from some of what we tell them, although this relies on their interest and memory capacity, and is generally less effective than active learning. At home this translates into your reminding them and helping them, even with simple tasks such as remembering to put a particular piece of muddy kit into a laundry basket, or repacking their homework into the school bag. If these activities need reminders, then think how difficult it must be for a teacher faced with a room full of pupils who are not predisposed to listening to or remembering simple instructions, especially those who are accustomed to being followed around and reminded at every turn at home. 

Wildfire learning however is when the class is given a tiny idea or question, and let loose to think, explore and report back. Through looking over each other’s shoulders, or listening to each other they are then are able to share the connections and ideas that are sparked. This quickly spreads as children copy each other’s ideas and add those of their own. Group tasks that make use of this style of learning work best if the children have easy access to knowledge beyond their own, such as that available in books, or on apps and websites, and are encouraged to develop questions and answers that connect to the knowledge in hand. Although this can make classrooms very buzzy (for which read active and noisy) the generated learning quickly spreads, like wildfire, from group to group, and comments called across the room such as: “Has anyone else found out that…?” or “Where did you find that site?” or “Hang on…. If this is right, then…..!” are all music to a teacher’s ears! This style of learning, when pulled back to a class focus at the end of a session will deliver far more punch in the learning, helps to develop independence, creates knowledge that follows interest and is therefore far easier to remember and perhaps most importantly captivates children to do and to want to know more. Classroom learning that is exciting, self-motivated, challenging, and carried out with friends and peers is a fantastic way to generate not only knowledge, but also a confidence and love of learning for the whole of life. What better can education offer?