Achieving Success Together
Welcome
Headteacher: Mrs V. CamposForest School
Forest School at Boxmoor
'Forest School' is a Scandinavian concept where the outdoors is used as an area for learning. Many of the activities evolve from the children's interests and ideas and the natural materials found in the outdoors, rather than pencil and paper activities.
'Forest School' offers an outdoor classroom which has minimal rules which are easy to understand. There are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers. We allow and encourage risk taking in a controlled environment. Children are encouraged to move away from adult interaction and to become more responsible for each other and themselves.
'Forest School' is about using the outdoors to promote confidence, self-esteem and independence. At Boxmoor we are passionate about developing the 'whole' child, not just their academic ability. The benefits will include:
Confidence, behaviour, concentration, independence, social and emotional development, working in a group and physical skills. The development of the whole child will have positive impacts on all areas of the child's life and learning.
'Forest School' is about exploring and experimenting. IT is experiencing the natural world through practical activities. The children go out in all weathers. all year round, exploring and learning from the changing seasons and the environment around them. The children's interests along with a variety of natural resources are used to stimulate creative thinking, problem solving and skill development, all wrapped up in 'PLAY'.
We recognise that in order to learn you have to engage and participate. For many children that engagement comes easily. However, some children find this difficult and these children lack confidence and have low self esteem. Evidence shows that the main outcomes of Forest School is the nurturing support and development of self esteem of participants - so they have a greater sense of self value and self worth.
Many of our children live safe, comfortable and organised lives. Whilst this is great, it provides little opportunity for children to test themselves, to explore the unknown and find out what they are truly capable of. We believe our activities help to address this.
We will build on the child's innate motivation and positive attitudes to learning, offering them the opportunities to take risks, make choices and initiate learning for themselves.
Miss Turner leads Forest School at Boxmoor Primary School
Forest School and welly walk ideas
Activities to try in the garden from the RSPB
Useful websites to support you with home learning over the coming weeks
www.woodlandtrust.org.uk › naturedetectives
www.pinterest.co.uk › edutopia › outdoor-learning
Making wattle and daub walls for our learning about the Great Fire of London in Year 2. The children were also learning to work as a group to facilitate a shared task and outcome.
Year 2 - experiencing a fire as part of their work on the Great Fire of London. We all enjoyed toasting marshmallows and eating smores.
Reception class listened to the story 'Not a stick'. They then found their own 'Not a stick' where they pretended their stick was something else like a wand or a walking stick. The other children had to guess what it was.
