Early years forest school

“All children deserve the care and support they need to have the best start in life. Children learn and develop at a faster rate from birth to five years old than at any other time in their lives, so their experiences in early years have a major impact on their future life chances.”  (Early Years foundation stage statutory framework).

Research shows that outdoor learning boosts confidence, social skills, communication, motivation, physical skills, knowledge and understanding.  Research has also found an increase in children’s self-esteem, self-confidence, ability to work cooperatively and positive attitude to learning following forest school experiences.  Forest school is an inspirational process that offers children regular opportunities to learn through hands-on experiences in a natural outdoor environment.  (Research documents from T Gill and O’Brien & Murray available to read on forestresearch.gov.uk)

For these reasons we have decided to create additional forest school experiences each week for our youngest children in nursery and Reception (early years), led by Mrs Strangeways who is qualified to lead both forest school and beach school.  This is as well as the Friday afternoon forest school sessions which all school year groups enjoy.