Forest school has been running in the college since 2011 and is embedded in the schools life skills curriculum. All youngsters have the opportunity to take part in Forest School learning throughout their time at the college.
Forest School is a child-centered inspirational learning process that offers opportunities for holistic growth through regular sessions. It is a long-term program that supports play, exploration and supported risk taking. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.
Forest School has a developmental ethos shared by thousands of trained practitioners around the world, who are constantly developing their learning styles and skills to support new and imaginative learners. Its roots reach back to the open-air culture, friluftsliv, or free air life, seen as a way of life in Scandinavia where Forest School began. It arrived in the UK in 1993 and has grown from strength to strength since then.
The process helps and facilitates more than knowledge-gathering, it helps youngsters develop socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually. It creates a safe, non-judgmental nurturing environment for youngsters to try stuff out and take risks. Forest School inspires a deep and meaningful connection to the world and an understanding of how a youngster fits within it. Our approach to risk means that youngsters constantly expand on their abilities by solving real-world issues, building self-belief and resilience. We believe that risk is more than just potential for physical harm, but a more holistic thing, there are risks in everything we do, and we grow by overcoming them. Forest School therefore, helps participants to become, healthy, resilient, creative and independent learners.