Forest School

Forest School Intent

“An understanding of the natural world is a source of not only great curiosity, but great fulfilment.”
– David Attenborough

At Oakwood, we offer an engaging, progressive Forest School provision that helps our pupils to develop important locational knowledge, a greater sense of the world we live in, and their enquiry and fieldwork skills.

We have our very own Forest School site. We are also very fortunate to have access to our wonderful nature trail and woodland area which provide a wealth of learning opportunites and play area for our children at Oakwood. Along side this we have easy access to Lordwood Woods which allows us to learn about our local area and extend our Forest School learning to a different setting.

What is Forest School?

Forest School at Oakwood is based on the key six principles of Forest School:

1) Long Term – It’s a process of regular sessions, rather than one-off visits.

2) In the Woodland – It takes place in the natural environment to support the development of a lifelong relationship between the learner and the natural world.

3) Holistic – It promotes the holistic development of everyone involved, creating resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.

4) Risk taking – It offers the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and themselves.

5) Practitioner Led – Mrs Gemma Fawcitt is our qualified Forest School Leader who will plan and lead our Forest School sessions. We as a school will ensure that we invest in her role to maintain a professional practice.

6) Child led learning – We provide a range of child led activities to create a community for wellbeing, development and learning.

Forest School at Oakwood

Forest School at Oakwood is a child-centred inspirational learning process that offers opportunities for nurturing our children’s social, emotional, physical and mental wellbeing through creating a comfortable and safe environment.  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 our wonderful natural setting.  We are very lucky to have our very own woodland onsite and a huge school field full of nature opportunities too.

Whilst at Oakwood every class will have a half term’s worth of sessions every week, normally between 6-7 depending on the half term.  Each class will receive an email prior to your child’s sessions starting stating the dates each session will be held and what clothing and footwear they will need.  Our key motto is …

We also offer extra morning sessions to small groups of children who benefit highly from extra time outside.  We are extremely proud of our Forest School at Oakwood and how happy it makes all the children and adults that come thrive being outside.