News
Great News!
We've been invited to Gorse Covert Preschool's Elf Hunt at Risley Moss. This event will raise much needed funds to improve the outdoor areas at the Pre-school, as well as promote awareness of the Risley Moss Ranger Service, and is suitable for the entire family.
Quick review of yesterday using multiple intelligences focusing on those we’d not really covered. Choosing Linguistic or Physical I went for the more active one. We acted out tableaus of yesterday’s activities and discussed them.
Then Lily used visual stimuli to recap and review. Who needs a whiteboard when you have leaves!
An interactive whiteboard Forest School style.
We were then left to our own devices to come up with a stick game. Quite naturally we split into boys and girls. The boys throwing sticks at a target and the girls playing a more gentle action game with some passing and throwing.
We tried stick sword fighting and discussed ways to manage it. Lily has been doing Forest Schools for a fair time and she’s never managed to prevent kids wanting to sword fight when they have a stick in their hand so it’s a case of managing this inherent desire.
After a tea we played hide the knot using a loop of rope before trying to make the loop into a square with our eyes shut. Forming a triangle was harder but making a star was very difficult with us all talking and no-one listening. It turns out Lily had orchestrated this so we could tune into how we felt during the exercise and empathise with kids working in a team. This lead onto our next topic of emotional intelligence and self esteem.
Forest School (if done correctly) is great for building confidence and self esteem. And we discussed various strategies for fostering this.
We then covered knife law and proving you’ve got a good reason to have a knife and defined where a public place is. It’s worth remembering that knifes are tools rather than weapons. Finally Lily left us with this development acronym for development:
· Social
· Physical
· Intellectual
· Creative
· Emotional
· Spiritual
For me this couldn’t of summarised my development with Forest School Practitioner Training any better.
If you’d like to learn about forest school training then why not look at http://kindlingplayandtraining.co.uk/
The start of the day involved having 3 life lines on my hands coloured in. Try it! If they join together they look like a sapling. Then go off to the woods and see if you can find your tree whose shape matches your hand. Alas I didn't but I did have a nice traipse around Quaker woods. The previous night was a full moon and I went for a bit of a moonlit wander so I wanted to retrace my steps.
Lily’s cuckoo called us together and taking full advantage of the breeze and Autumn fall we were set the task of catching a falling leaf. I found the harder you try the more difficult it is and you risk running into a tree.
Rather than find a leaf it found me – in fact it nearly hit me in the face. It was a straggly thing and I started to get leaf envy seeing what the others had caught. Still! In the pocket it went to give me good luck for a year and a day.
We then played Rock Paper Scissors Forest School style. Bird Fox Maggot would be great for food chains and webs.
Then we played pass the mouse which I enjoyed immensely until it was my turn to see who had the mouse. At this stage everyone had cottoned on to being sneaky sneaks and identifying who had the mouse proved hopeless and a bit frustrating. Its well worth empathising with the pupils that play this and lose. How does a practitioner manages kids losing at games in a way that builds their self esteem? That’s tomorrow!
To review yesterday we produced a timeline with cord and added whatever we could to represent activities. Quite abstract but the explanation gives credence to our creations.
Back to the meeting room we cover Land Management, Environmental Impact Assessments and Development. This is bread and butter to me with my previous experience working on a nature reserve where I had the privilege of developing it for education purposes.
I love the idea of Forest School Practitioners being custodians of the wood and the environment. This is why I've included Sustainability as one of our values and we have a woodland promise to leave no trace. In actual fact you could work with a land owner to vastly improve the wood for example, removing excess bracken, removing invasive foreign species e.g. rhododendron, or reporting dangerous trees, ash dieback, etc.
I firmly believe having walked through woods in the UK and on the far side of the world in New Zealand that forests are special places. They’re our green temples. They’re the lungs of the world giving us the air we breathe. You should give back more than you take. I’m incensed by companies including some outdoor education companies, which treat forests as a commodity to be used and nothing more.
The afternoon is more practical. Lily makes an impressive fire which we work around. Simon whittles a spoon which is pretty impressive. Alison whittles a mushroom. This inspires me to make a wooden mushroom that I can put my logo on. And my love of fire is rekindled again by making some char cloth in a Harry Potter pencil case – Incendio!
Now I know why Lily calls her Forest School 'Kindling'.
Until now we’d all headed into Quaker woods en masse. This time we entered one at a time and took the opportunity to slow down and just observe. I leant against a rocky back rest and waited and listened. This was a wonderful chance to reconnect with nature which I captured as the sun shone down on this fern perched nearby. Lily called us back together with a very convincing cuckoo call where we discussed the various bird calls we’d heard. Then it was onto hear and seek games (like hide and seek but blindfolded). I quite enjoyed being sneaky and trying to creep up on ‘it’ without being heard which is actually quite hard in a forest with twigs everywhere.
Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf a flower.
We had a great laugh reviewing through the medium of sound with Tom producing an Ali G style rap and me ripping off the theme from Tree Fu Tom (a different Tom) to describe yesterday’s leaf kung fu. Lily then had us using forest sound notation to make music – truly innovative.
NAME THAT TUNE. Each item represents a sound in a loop.
Using the friends meeting hall we then covered a lot of educational theory on accelerated learning, learning styles and multiple intelligences.
Lily dissected her emergency pack. If you’re going to do any outdoor education its worth making sure their emergency pack is up to scratch. Better safe than sorry.
Emergency kit. Much, much more than just a first aid kit.
Then it was time to go back to the woods for more practical. We were introduced to safe whittling with knives at which point I whittled yesterday’s mallet so it had a smooth, rounded handle.
We needed some refreshment so we tried boiling water in a Kelly/storm kettle. With wet wood that’s not so easy. Kelly Kettles have been known to scold especially if boiled with the cork in. When they pop they spray boiling water in a plume. We avoided that by creating a no go zone with sticks and making sure the cork was out.
It was a lot of work for a cup of tea so I elected to upgrade to hot chocolate!
TEA TIME. Note the kneeling position (as modeled by Lily), cork out, established zones with sticks, thermal gloves and flat surface. If you see someone using a storm kettle without this then challenge them - They're not safe and could scold someone!
Health & Safety - James and I sawing wood the forest school way. Note hands through and above the blade to keep the wood stable and making it difficult to cut yourself if the blade jumps. Bare hands on the handle to get a good grip.
Today was very much about review and reflection. Forest School is meant to be a long term programme developing pupils in all sorts of ways. We have six week programmes and some one off sessions that don’t have this long term element. We’re quite comfortable with that as we work alongside teachers who do oversee this development and to be frank we would expect schools to invite us back.
As an ex teacher reviewing is an integral part of reinforcing learning. Reflection too, especially deeper insights and feelings straying into pastoral care which any teacher is familiar with.
Then it’s onto Health and Safety and getting that balance of risk without impairing development. We’ve loads of health and safety experience well beyond the forest school training and its our first value that makes us who we are. It was good to see the context in which safety is delivered within forest schools. There was a couple of things we didn't quite agree on such as the definition of risk (we believe it should include severity as well as the chance of something bad happening) and risk vs benefit.
Risk vs benefit is where you determine the developmental value offset against risk. We think that if something has value then do it, if it doesn't then don’t. But you must manage the risk to a level that is as safe as possible without wrecking the benefit. An example might be playing conkers with a full suit of armour on – ridiculous but often its reported that playing conkers has been banned in schools which is nonsense.
For safety buffs you’d apply the hierarchy of control measures here. You can’t offset safety vs benefit but bear in mind when I say safety I don’t mean zero risk.
This sounds very managementy so playing hide and seek games and getting to some practical in the woods was a relief. My co student James gave a great Swan impression when we were asked to make animal noises to help the seeker - we couldn't tell where he was because we were rolling about laughing.
Speaking of animals Lily told me a meerkat tale to help do a taut rope hitch (a sliding knot). This made a tricky knot “simples!”
The morning involves meeting other forest leaders to be including teachers, an art therapist and a private outdoor education start up. Job one is the gateway into the wood where we pull together our 3 rules (pictured) but in the form of string that we weave together.
3 rules for entering the wood
We then cautiously approach our green glen to protect the tiny residents there from being squelched by a dragon. I rebuild an elf condo whilst others build beacons, spells and even a seat for the dragon to sit in so it stops wrecking the village.
Our teacher Lily does a great job and wows us with her leaf stitching skills.
Then after lunch with theory done and dusted, we get practical with bow saw and lopper training. Onto clove knots we make a goat willow star. Got my Christmas decorations sorted!
A day of introductions - to friendly students and teacher, a friendly forest, new skills learnt and old ones revisited, knots and tools. Awesome!
Hmmm! I think a gold spray paint may make this more festive cheer rather than Blair Witch
Well I'm back from a fantastic week of Forest School Training with Kindling in the Lake District. I'll be giving a day by day breakdown of this exceptional experience of the next few days so if you're thinking about coming becoming a forest school leader stay tuned.
You can see more about kindling here. http://www.kindlingplayandtraining.co.uk/
White Rabbits ! Its November!
Its exciting times because I'm about to go on my forest schools practitioner course. This level 3 course means I get to spend a week carrying out all sorts of fun activities like den building, fire lighting, etc up in a forest in Cumbria. Its more than that though as you absorb yourself in the forest school culture and ethos. Then begins your personal development portfolio which you cram full of photos of all your fun in the forest as your forest school career progresses.
Its a shame the unseasonably warm weather is about to change. But as is often said "there is no bad weather - just bad clothing!"
We're looking for more Forest School Practitioners to work with us. So if you're interested have a look at our values and jobs page http://www.fairyforestschool.com/values/ and get in touch. Rawdon.
An autumn walk in Helsdale Wood and Spud Wood , Lymm , Cheshire revealed a Wood Dragon (pictured).
I ran for my life. Stopping only to pick up some prickly sweet chestnuts.
Friend or foe?
Welcome to the Fairy Forest School. Today has been exciting. We've just set up our facebook page - visit us at Fairy forest school and then relaxed by spending the weekend with the kids at two lovely local woods in the Warrington area. One a woodlands trust site I spent my childhood wandering up when visiting my Aunt and the other a reclaimed waste site.
Both were pretty magical. The waste site at Moore Nature Reserve (apart from the odd borehole cover) looks pretty much like its been there for years with some mature oaks and silver birch trees. Its a hidden gem and well worth a visit.
