Theory and Development

No one who has a well-developed connection to the outdoors needs an explanation of how nature has a positive effect on our wellbeing. However, for those without such a personal connection, a reference to studies into the benefits of time spent in nature can be encouraging to those who need a push to spend more time in this way, or for them to encourage their children in that direction as well, especially as formalised programming typically comes with a fee.

Friluftsliv

Friluftsliv, or ‘free air life’ is the idea that time spent immersed in nature is good for a person’s wellness, physically, socially, mentally and emotionally (related to Forest School Principle 2). Beery quotes B. Henderson in aiming at a definition: ‘Friluftsliv is ‘outdoor recreation with its heart within the land and linked to a tradition of being and learning with the land’ (p.95). While it is a cultural concept not having a direct English translation, many researchers have established that the idea extends outside of Scandinavia. Nature-derived wellness has been explored, for example, by education reformers in England, e.g.  the MacMillan sisters, and by the Italian education revolutionary, Maria Montessori. Current debate around friluftsliv focuses much attention on the division between traditional cultural friluftsliv activities (such as mushroom and berry picking, hiking or walking) and so-called adventure sports such as downhill skiing which are considered modern friluftsliv activities by some (much contested), and which are overriding traditional pursuits in some demographics. The term originally was used to refer to a state of stillness, simply sitting and feeling at ease and at one with the natural environment. Another debated division exists between activities requiring travelling over a distance and those which take place in a confined area. As the benefit of friluftsliv comes from ‘being inspired by and experiencing nature’ and that ‘exercise alone is an inadequate explanation of the beneficial health effects of nature’ (Lagestad, p.22) neither form of activity can claim to be most beneficial or closest to the true meaning of the phrase, hence a cause for debate.

However, in terms of Forest School, which aims to give clients the opportunity to experience a single place regularly over time (Principle 1), for our purposes we must think of friluftsliv in its stationary aspect – benefitting from the outdoors simply by being in it, and fostering the Environmental Connectedness which some researchers see as a primary factor in a person’s wellbeing (see Mikaels, 2018; Beery, 2013). It’s worth mentioning that this conceptualisation is also closest to Ibsen’s 1859 use of the term, in which no specific activity is required, because it is the context of being outdoors, the mindful connection we feel with it, at the heart of friluftsliv which allows participants to feel “outside of themselves” (LaBier, 2018).

Within my Forest School practice, I hope to see benefit to clients simply from their spending regular, brief intervals in the natural setting of the Forest School site, regardless of their chosen activity (or lack of activity, as I expect some individuals to prefer sitting in quiet reflection), that they report feeling calmer, more focused, healthier, or experiencing the general ‘lightness of being’ associated with being outdoors in natural light and fresh air. I would hope especially to observe benefits for clients with an ASC, of which there will be a few, as the difficulties of modern indoor educational settings for those with an ASC are well documented. Artificial lighting, reflective surfaces, ‘busy’ decorations, audio feedback from classroom technologies, artificial cleaning fluid and other material odours can cause sensory discomfort for all, but especially for individuals with an ASC, who commonly find natural settings much more tolerable, provided that their other needs can be adequately met in these environments. The freedom to focus closely on something of particular interest, or on nothing at all, is also much more ASC-friendly compared to typical classroom activities. An excellent resource for information and practical advice can be found in Michael James’ Forest School and Autism: A Practical Guide (2018).

Medicine Wheel Teaching

Playing around the edges of outdoors pedagogy for some years has been the millenia-old teachings of many North American Indigenous peoples, at the foundation of which is the Medicine Wheel framework. With their origins in pre-colonisation times, such teachings are at the centre of ongoing reclamation projects among First Nations, Métis, and other native peoples of Canada and the United States of America, instigated in large part by the losses they have suffered of their cultural heritage, including teachings of their history, cosmology, language, spirituality and expressive arts. Additionally, Indigenous communities are grappling with families broken by generations of interference (e.g. residential schooling), disconnection from their ancestral lands and loss of the survival skills which had sustained their peoples for millennia. The broken social relationships and unhealthy coping mechanisms rife in many communities (including substance abuse and other forms of self-harm), lack of a sense of identity, personal empowerment, and failure to connect to ‘traditional’ forms of classroom education have caused difficulty for many generations. In those communities, however, which have put an emphasis on reconnection with the land, with culture and with self, generally through the Medicine Wheel worldview, some healing of the difficulties outlined here has proven possible (Ritchie et al., 2015).

I can’t claim a connection with the Medicine Wheel either by culture or heritage; I am not an Indigenous person. My reference to it, and my use of it, can only be excused as an attempt to learn from those who have lived more closely and spiritually in tune with their environment, and therefore are better teachers for those who wish to do likewise. I will never understand what the Medicine Wheel represents for those whose connections to it are both personal and generations-deep. I can only ask for their blessing to explore what it can mean to me; it has certainly helped me to foster a better, more balanced concept of wellbeing, and a useful way of discussing it with others seeking a way of considering their own wellbeing.

One can easily see, in the Medicine Wheel, conceptual connections with Scandinavian friluftsliv outlined above, both aiming to foster wellbeing through personal connection with culture and landscape. Harper and colleagues reference a range of research projects when commenting on the wider application of Indigenous practices and ways of thinking in the offering of wellness activities for youth in Canada, stating: “This desired ‘outdoors lifestyle’ is reflected in Canadian WT practice which often occurs in wild places, is delivered in ‘expedition’ style and often uses traditional travel routes, living practices and tools. Further, WT programmes are described as holistic in their breadth of components and perspective on health and well-being, are idealised to build resiliency in young people and fit well within the worldview of many Indigenous communities in Canada by tying the benefits of outdoor adventure to the broader health agenda.” (p.152) It is not possible to view the Medicine Wheel in the same way as those Indigenous peoples to whom the concept culturally belongs, in relation to Forest School in the UK. However, as other Forest School thinkers have done, I see echoes of the Medicine Wheel not only in some of the issues facing clients (namely, disconnection from ancestral landscapes and cultural knowledge, and working within formal educational frameworks which do not address the needs of many individuals) but also in the approach Forest School takes in addressing these issues.

The Medicine Wheel is a mirror of the self. In it, we perceive our whole selves, and it can be used as a way of diagnosing our wellbeing in terms of our physical, mental, spiritual, and social/cultural health (among some peoples, such diagnosis is called a ‘Vision Quest’, as referenced in Sara Knight’s Forest School for All, p. 169). Such a holistic approach to wellness has clear relation to Forest School Principle 3. Movement within the Wheel is circular, and no one of these aspects of self is more important than any other aspect, for all are required to be in balance for our wellbeing. The four quarters of the Medicine Wheel remind us to know and respect the elements of the natural world and to understand their interrelationship, and the diversity and equality among people of all races of the world. Thus, the term itself can be understood: Working towards wellbeing (or ‘Medicine’) requires mindful understanding of the elements of a good life and our place in the wider sphere of ‘Creation’, and that in the circle (or ‘Wheel’) of life, all things are equal and connected to everything else. It is a simple way of visualising and understanding what Forest School leaders are attempting to achieve alongside their clients. It can be turned into a pictorial representation of the aims of Forest School, with teachings being given kinaesthetic and visual grounding, for example through drawing or creating a medicine wheel on the ground or on paper (or even seeing it in the circle of seats around an open fire). The framework can form the basis of planning activities or charting progress for individual clients (see Fig. 2 and 3 below, which are mock-ups of these idea), or chart the connection that clients would have to flora and fauna.

While the term is not in general use among UK Forest School practitioners, the Medicine Wheel framework is conceptually related, not only for use in practitioners’ own planning and reflection (Forest School Principle 5), but for clients as well (Forest School Principle 6). The Medicine Wheel allows all who participate to visualise and reflect on the many aspects of self and the wider world they encounter through Forest School, reflect on their own areas of personal strength and continuing growth, and use it as impetus to work mindfully on those areas which need boosting for general wellbeing. In Indigenous traditional thinking in Eastern Canada where I’m from, the Medicine Wheel framework makes it clear that connecting with one’s ancestral environment is key not only to physical and mental health, but to making connections within the self and living what’s perceived as the Good Life, or Anishinaabe Bimaadziwin (Ritchie, p. 350). Working with the Medicine Wheel requires fostering a personal connection not just with one’s cultural traditions but with one’s ancestral or ‘home’ landscape – to mindfully find oneself a part of a much larger organism extending through time and the natural world. If that’s not the driving goal of Forest School, I’m not sure what is.

Environmental Connectedness and Wellbeing

It is increasingly common to find articles in mainstream media touting the health benefits of time spent in nature (in one aspect, referred to as ‘wilderness therapy’ or WT), often with a cultural shading which encourages us either to explore the mentality of our ancestors, or that of another culture perceived to be holistic and enlightened in its approach to wellness. Friluftsliv (a term coined by the Norwegian, Henrik Ibsen in 1859) is a concept which is generally accepted as a basis for wellness activity and educational reform in Scandinavia and beyond, including the emergence of Forest School in the United Kingdom in the first decade of the 21st century.  The benefits of WT are coming to be well-recognised, and cross-cultural, cross-national studies are beginning to show the universal applicability of core therapy concepts (Harper et al, 2018). Friluftsliv may be a named cultural concept in Scandinavia, however as several researchers have established, the concept is not exclusive to Scandinavian culture and therefore is a useful way of naming the positive connection between individuals and the natural environment on a much broader scale.

Most recently, a study by the Norwegian Pål Lagestad and academic partners, which appears in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and Leadership (2019) touches on the importance of friluftsliv to wellbeing and indicates the benefits of tracking participation in traditional friluftsliv activities as an indicator of general youth activity levels as well as the health of social relationships both within and beyond the cultural confines of Scandinavia. Although the translation and definition of friluftsliv varies (see Beery, p.93 for a sampling of definitions which have appeared over the last twenty years), at its core is the concept of wellness achieved through time spent in the natural environment. It has been well-established through research that the cultural concept of friluftsliv is related to the psychological concept of Environmental Connectedess (EC), and in Scandinavia is recognised in and by every age group which has come under direct study (ibid). Such studies suggest significant implications and recommendations for access to nature, outdoor recreation and education (see also Mikaels, 2018). Pilot studies have indicated substantial positive mental health benefits to time spent in nature (Mutz and Müller, 2016). Conversely, inactivity among youth and their perception of family relationships has been found to have a direct connection, in Lagestad’s study, to their level of participation (or lack thereof) in traditional friluftsliv activities, where inactivity in these areas can be used as a predictor of general inactivity. (p.21) Lagestad’s study stands on the shoulders of, and reflects the general findings of WT research, best summarised by Odden (2008), that ‘Traditional outdoor recreational life may constitute an important positive contributor to children’s physical and mental health’ and that ‘Friluftsliv activities may have a major and lifelong effect on health and quality of life.’

The rationale for the study by Lagestad and his colleagues is that ‘increased knowledge of factors that predict inactivity is critical for preventing people globally from becoming inactive in friluftsliv. This knowledge may find applications with governments, teachers, and family members, who are all attempting to establish habits of engaging in friluftsliv in young people.’ (p.22) In establishing the power that natural environments have over urban environments, the article quotes F. Nansen (1922), establishing as traditional and long-held the concept that the benefit of immersion in the natural environment is not solely a result of improved physical fitness: ‘The first great thing is to find yourself, and for that you need solitude and contemplation. I tell you deliverance will not come from the rushing, noisy centres of civilization. It will come from lonely places! The great reformers in history have come from the wilderness.’ (p.22) Lagestad’s study (among others) confirms through research the contemplative power of friluftsliv, with 90% of participants reporting a desire to experience silence, tranquillity and ‘fresh air’ as driving their choice to engage with the outdoors, and that many traditional activities require no specialist equipment, skill or knowledge, thus making these wellness factors readily available to all. (p.23)

Such concepts come as no surprise to anyone who has experienced the sense of replenishment and cleansing that comes with time spent in woodlands. Even as a small child, I recall the special feeling that was to be had during long canoe expeditions into the Northern Ontario wilderness -  tens of thousands of square kilometres of forests, lakes, rivers and wetlands, and glimpses of the majestic Canadian Shield granite over which we travelled - being sometimes many days travel on foot and by paddle from the nearest road or access point, bringing with us all we needed and relying on natural fresh water sources and firewood gleaned from the forest while in camp. The silence in the evening was so profound, we felt deafened by a strange buzzing in our ears coming from everywhere and nowhere – the sound, as my mother explains it, ‘of life.’ These were opportunities for our parents to pass on traditional skills – fishing, paddling, map reading and navigation, identifying species, tying knots, first aid, safe handling of fire – everything needed for survival in a total wilderness. I can recall from early on a sense of connection with history and tradition, that these were skills needed by my ancestors and those of the people who are indigenous to the land, and that the place held spiritual significance. I recall soaking my skin and hair in the lakes just before leaving, allowing it to dry and feeling reluctant to ‘wash the woods off’ once home. I always carried, and still do, a fragment of wood or a stone, taken as a talisman to keep the woods with me and feel the continued psychological benefit of environmental connectedness. In the Carolinian forest at home, just a few hundred miles further south, towering hardwoods create, again in the words of my mother, ‘our cathedral’. What do we do there? Simply be: observe nature, experience it with our senses, walk, sit, think, pick berries, tell stories. Not a religious woman in the traditional sense, my mother’s phrasing hints at what time spent in woodlands offers a person: a feeling of connecting with something much larger, leading to a sense of personal replenishment and wellbeing. In times of personal struggle, with mental and physical health, it was only really by retreating into the wilderness that I felt any real progress towards a rebalance. In times of stress, I daydream of being ‘out there’. If that’s not possible, I watch my favourite vloggers on YouTube who record their wilderness camps and bushcrafting activities, and the sights and sounds of the wilderness they share with viewers is profoundly soothing – the ultimate ‘slow TV’, to reference a related Scandinavian wellness phenomenon. It is also at times of wilderness immersion when I feel a strong connection to my family, especially those I share the experience with, and thankfulness for the skills and knowledge that have been passed on to me through teaching and example. These experiences are anecdotal evidence only, but compelling, of the validity of Lagestad’s findings, and especially so as these experiences were and are obtained outside of the cultural home of friluftsliv, yet touch on the same core ideas.

However, the research of Lagestad and others has established that a decline in participation in friluftsliv activities (60% in 1997, and 40% in 2014) in the general population is attributable to a particular decline in participation among young people. Moreover, young people today tend to be drawn toward friluftsliv activities which are perceived as ‘exciting’ (such as skiing, climbing) but which are simultaneously exclusionary, involving expense, technical skill, equipment and travel which not only prevents many from being able to engage in them, but which for those that do, can stand in the way of a meaningful engagement with the outdoor environments in which such activities are carried out. Moreover, preference for such sports means many traditional activities are not receiving attention and are being lost. (p.23) Additionally, the study is based on sociological theory, specifically regarding the role of family and friends in shaping a person’s cognitions and behaviours. People are more likely to engage in friluftsliv if this is an activity shared by their social network. People who are most likely to engage lifelong in healthy levels of activity are those who have had a strong influence upon them as children to engage in activity, with parents having the strongest positive or negative influence. (p.29)

When establishing the connection nurtured by Forest School between participants and the woodland, it is important to consider the points above, that not only is it an opportunity for the environment itself to create positive feedback in the client, with noticeable improvements in mental and physical wellbeing associated with opportunity to spend time regularly and often outdoors, it also fills the gap in socialising clients toward a nature-based wellness model if such socialisation is not otherwise present in the client’s life. I was lucky to have the example and motivation of parents who understand the benefits of living an outdoor life, but know from the anecdotes of my contemporaries that many have not shared this experience, and for them, the outdoors was and is an unknown, uncomfortable environment. Sara Knight puts it well in her conclusion of Forest School for All, where she directly addresses the influence of friluftsliv on the Forest School guiding principles: ‘Habits of quiet contact established at a young age can offer balm and healing when we encounter the normal bumps and bruises of life.’ (p.240) Forest School provides the chance to create a ‘woodland family’, where Leaders and other participants provide a positive example for clients and so establish positive patterns of thought and behaviour, as a parent might with a child. Additionally, Leaders are able to pass on traditional knowledge and skills, so that these – crucial as they are to a continuation of accessible, culturally significant friluftsliv activities, no matter the national or cultural setting in which they are undertaken – may see a resurgence, or at least a slowing in their decline. Such an opportunity as Forest School provides will be of personal significance to all participants, for cultural sharing and connection with the natural environment, helping participants towards wellness in its many aspects.

Forest School and its Impact on Personal Development and Wellbeing

Physical development and wellbeing may be defined as wellness in terms of bodily health, strength, motor control, coordination and sensory development, as well as physical resilience. Forest School clearly provides opportunity for clients to develop in each of these ways through the physical activity they engage with, from running, jumping and climbing, through to delicate manoeuvres with a whittling knife. The fact that clients will be out in all seasons and weathers means developing their resilience in the face of inclement conditions while they learn what kind of clothing, activities, and other preparations will keep them physically comfortable in such inclement conditions. One mustn’t overlook the importance of proprioception and vestibular sense, which are especially developed through gross motor functions and which inform everything from personal space, to eye movement for reading, to the pressure we use to grasp a pencil. Forest school abounds with opportunity to develop these senses. (see Fiona Hopkins, in Forest School for All, Sara Knight, ed., 2011, and Michael James, Forest School and Autism: A Practical Guide, 2018)

Social and emotional development and wellbeing particularly concerns self-esteem is how we perceive ourselves in relation to others and the value we place on our own efforts, thoughts, and character. Forest School is especially helpful for those who are not best served by a traditional classroom environment, for example by taking away paper-based learning, unnatural lighting, visual busyness, etc. Forest School levels the playing field and provides individuals the chance to explore their own interests and skills, rise to new challenges, improve social bonds and communication, and to be seen in a new light by adults and peers in a setting that better serves their needs. Additionally, clients may de-stress, regain/maintain focus because of their environment, and feel they are putting their best selves forward, which is very good for self-esteem.

Confidence is our own belief in our strengths, abilities, choices, decisions, and ideas. Confidence helps a person decide to take worthwhile risks, push boundaries, explore limitations, promote their own interest, and make the first moves connecting with others. Self-confidence has knock-on effects with regard to agency, executive function, and anxiety. Forest School is good for building confidence by allowing clients to work on their own interests at their own rate without fear of failing summative assessment – removing many of the standard features of classroom learning beyond the earliest years of schooling. Every session is an opportunity for small successes or revisit past difficulties to problem-solve, both of which are good for confidence.

Emotional intelligence may be defined as how we perceive/understand the feelings of others and ourselves. It includes awareness of the spectrum of feelings available to human beings, their causes, and how these feelings manifest themselves. Forest School provides opportunity for success, frustration, silliness, jealousy, etc. but in an environment where such feelings have the space to be explored and reflected upon, without interfering with the intellectual pursuits and time limitations of a traditional classroom. In working alongside or with other clients, individuals will be able to see how others express feeling and develop language to communicate about feelings, including appropriate responses to feelings. For older clients, Forest School will be an opportunity to socialise without the use of phones/social media, where emojis and memes form a visual language through which individuals increasingly communicate their feelings. With the removal of these tools comes opportunity and requirement to create a personal language of feeling, and to engage with the face and body expression of others’ feelings, potentially improving their real-world emotional intelligence.

Resilience – while physical resilience was mentioned above (1.2), resilience comes in many forms, all to do with facing or continuing to face settings and situations which challenge us. People who have difficulty with resilience may choose to avoid challenging circumstances altogether out of a fear of, for example, discomfort or failure. They can be easily knocked by initial difficulty, and small setbacks can have lasting negative effects. Simultaneously, a resilient individual will persevere with patience and hope for a positive outcome. Resilience is bundled together with self-esteem and confidence – difficulties in these other areas can adversely affect resilience, and vice versa. Therefore, the same benefits of Forest School seen above apply to a client’s resilience as well. For example, a client who initially struggles to light a fire using a fire steel, encouraged to continue trying, problem solving, and believing that success is possible, will be more likely to persevere until they are successful, and receive the positive feedback of success that in turn builds their self-esteem and confidence further.

Spiritual development – not all Forest School clients will be religious in the traditional sense, and a definition of this term is not based in any one faith tradition. Rather, spiritual development refers to feeling a belonging to something larger than oneself – the connectedness we have with all the world around us, or the circle of life in which lives of all kinds are born, mature, reproduce and die. Forest School offers a plethora of experiences that help clients perceive the largeness and oneness of the world around them, and their place in it, fostering respect, stewardship, humility, responsibility and other values at the core of many spiritual paths. Some clients will be able to relate their experiences to a faith tradition shared by their family or community, and for others it will be an opportunity for reflection, mindfulness and self-exploration.

Intellectual development may be stimulated by freeform play or by learning new skills and facing new challenges. Particularly:

Creativity is required to problem solve, understand relationships, and explore the potential of situations, settings, opportunities – basically to make the most of anything life throws at us. The capacity for creativity, like any intellectual capacity, varies from person to person. Forest School provides stimulus for creative development through imaginary play, storytelling, crafting, sensory stimulation, and by many other means. It is increasingly common for people to spend their time in non-creative pursuits, so their capacity, as with a muscle, deteriorates through lack of exercise. Forest School, for some clients, will allow them to exercise their capacity for creativity in a similar way to physical exercise for bodily health.

Independent Learning forms the foundation of successful education. A teacher can convey knowledge and provide opportunity for intellectual challenge, however it’s the learner’s responsibility to rise to those opportunities, be inquisitive, reflective, and otherwise independently internalise and manipulate the information they receive for learning to be meaningful. With its focus on client-led activity, Forest School encourages individuals to be independent, by finding intrinsic motivation for their pursuits and experiences. That motivation is something clients are then able to transfer into other areas of their lives, in school and beyond.

This last point is an important final consideration as it applies to every area of development covered in this review: the skills and strengths clients build at Forest School can be transferred to all aspects of their lives, and have a positive ongoing impact, potentially leading to wellness for the client in the broadest sense.

Characteristics of Play and its Importance of Children Engaging with the Outdoors

‘Play,’ according to Maria Montessori, ‘is the child’s work.’ Play will be an especially significant activity for Forest School clients in the youngest age groups, and much of the benefit of Forest School, for these children, will be accomplished through the freedom to play. Play can be individual or collaborative, and the Forest School ethos makes clear the value it places on individual pursuits – key as they are to mental and emotional health and personal development. Play can be characterised as intrinsically motivated and self-directed, rather than ‘led’ activity. Play stimulates the imagination and children develop their creative powers through play. Sometimes, play is used as a processing tool where children re-enact scenarios they have seen in media, at school or at home, and they are able to develop an understanding of how people acted in those scenarios. These scenarios may be incidents of trauma or other negative experience, meaning that such opportunities are crucial for therapeutic processing. Re-enactment is closely linked to a child’s developing social imagination, and it may be helpful for Leaders to observe clients engaging in this activity as a means of gauging their developing intelligences and noticing any particular difficulties in this area.

Play may be purposeful or purposeless, and it explores the potential of any activity or setting or object which is brought into play, pushing expectations and boundaries in directions beyond the capability of most adults. The ability to play diminishes with age, while some people find play in the traditional sense difficult for other reasons, including missed opportunity to develop an instinct for play. The prevalence of led entertainment, such as internet and other media-based diversions is increasingly concerning as a disruption to children’s natural inclination to play in their ‘real’ surroundings.

This concern derives from the fact that play makes children happy and calm, in addition to stimulating their imaginations, problem solving, concentration, boundary-seeking and risk-taking, language and communication potential, their fine and gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination, etc. If children do not seek out, or are not encouraged to seek out this kind of stimulus, their developmental potential will be limited.

Towards these various ends, play is crucial at Forest School. Some clients will need Forest School as an opportunity to connect with, or reconnect with, the idea of play, keeping in mind that while it is usually an early-years activity, clients who have missed this important developmental step may regress towards play activity. Older clients, and those seeking new skills and experiences to work into their own pursuits and play, may learn from Leaders and others, opening up new play possibilities and letting the clients come to own the knowledge and skills passed on to them. The environment of Forest School provides opportunity for risks that are not otherwise available, and sensory experiences not otherwise available, particularly for urbanised clients. There will be emotional stimulation at Forest School, as clients connect with the larger world around them, explored crucially through play.

Key Influences on a person’s engagement with the outdoors, and their impact on clients and others

Emotional state, such as fear and anxiety, excitement or positive anticipation     

Negative emotions may cause clients to self-limit their participation in activities. Conversely, fear can stimulate self-motivation to overcome what is feared. How an anxious client is approached will have an impact – knowledge of the individual is important.

Positive emotions towards FS may cause clients to behave differently here than in curriculum lessons. Clients will participate to a higher degree and see wider wellbeing benefits to their engagement.

Examples of, and praise for, pupils engaging positively can motivate reluctant clients.

Expectations based on ‘normal’ directed learning     

Clients will (initially, especially) wait to engage with set activities, perhaps questioning parameters such as the timing of the session, who they may work with, what their objectives are, etc. They may not place value on independent, unassessed activities. Such clients will need leading towards independent function, such as by offering a choice of activities, demonstrating praise for clients working independently, etc. Understanding and conversation with individuals is key. For some, freedom from usual parameters will be highly motivating and confidence-building. Wellbeing benefits will differ from client to client.

Familiarity with Forest School

Many clients will have gone to FS in their early primary years, where free play predominated. In upper KS2 and lower KS3, play activities will be mixed with skill-building and outdoor exploration activities. The transition to a different style of FS should occur naturally as clients mature. Clients coming from other primary settings may have had other FS experiences, or none. This may affect how clients group themselves for activities. A good set of introductory sessions will be important to familiarise clients with this FS setting.

Social dynamic

Clients take their social dynamic with them into the FS setting. Friendship and adversarial relations will affect how clients group themselves for activities and may add a layer of peer assessment that would not otherwise exist. FS will be an opportunity for social difficulties to be addressed, relations repaired, and socially excluded clients to find inclusion as their personalities/abilities become better understood by their peers.

Special Educational Needs      

Clients who face limitations and poor confidence in a regular curriculum setting may find the FS environment immensely freeing – a place to shine – and will therefore see significant wellbeing benefits. Others, depending on their SEN, might find FS especially challenging and therefore thought must go into planning activities requiring, for example, fine motor control, the use of both hands, etc. Knowledge of individuals’ SEN will be key to planning activities and projecting outcomes. Learning targets from IEPs can be addressed, implemented and explored at FS.

Personality and Resilience       

FS will be a time to shine or a frustration to individuals of different personalities/levels of resilience. Intrinsically motivated clients will more happily engage with independent activities, while extrinsically motivated clients are more likely to engage in group activities or seek reassurance/approval from adults. Activities requiring problem solving, skill-honing, or long-term observation will be good for resilience, patience, etc. for all clients, but some will require more support through these kinds of activities than others.

Weather, environmental factors, time            

The conditions in which FS activities are undertaken can positively or negatively affect clients’ attitude toward those activities, and also inform clients choice of activity, and therefore FS leaders must let these factors influence their planning. Cold weather, for example, will lend itself better to fire and shelter-building activities, while warm weather is better for explorative activities and games. Clients will be more or less willing to engage depending on their comfort level, wakefulness, how much energy they have expended in the school day otherwise, etc. Activities should be planned to suit a range of such needs, from high-energy games to sitting quietly.

The Role of the Forest School Leader

The Role of Forest School Leader falls roughly into four parts, comprising a range of responsibilities, including, but not limited to:

Instructor (Incl. role model, naturalist and eco-champion)

The age of my clients requires a leader to be capable of far more than supervising and guiding explorative play. My clients want to know things, and they want to know how to do things, build things, and make things. They are far more aware of those around them and are starting to think about what kind of people they want to be, making positive, environmentally responsible role models important. FS Leaders should be able to impart wisdom, strengthening inter-generational bonding and respect, and to keep traditional knowledge alive.

On-Site Supervisor (incl. health and safety/first aid/safeguarding/counsellor/monitor)

Both planned and dynamic risk evaluation is needed, responsive to the clients’ choices. Clients are being given opportunities to explore themselves in relation to others and their environment, meaning that issues may arise that the Forest School leader must handle professionally and sensitively. At the end of the day, children must be involved and have experiences that leave them feeling safe and secure. Adults must be aware of their responsibilities towards the clients and consistently carry these out in line with school policies.

Resource Manager (incl. planning, administration, site development, restoration, conservation and maintenance)

Forest School leaders have a responsibility to the environment they operate within, and to ensure any tools or materials they use are in good supply, in working order and fit for purpose. Both advance and dynamic environmental impact assessment must be carried out to avoid negatively affecting the location our clients are meant to appreciate. Weekly, seasonal and yearly plans for site improvement/maintenance will ensure continued success.

Communications (incl. marketing, advertising, liaison with school, home, outside schools and agencies, photographer and copy writer)

Forest School should be part of a client’s education, not separate from it. Therefore, effective communication with the other members of that client’s community of learning is key for integration. In order to ensure continued success in a long-term Forest School offering, it will be necessary to keep it current in people’s thoughts. It should be mentioned to current and prospective pupils, written about in newsletters, on the website, and generally presented in an excellent light. The Forest School can only run effectively if it has support of all members of a school community, whether in terms of an active volunteer force, or adequate budgeting. The Forest School Leader must be its first champion.