Forest School
Welcome to Branching Outwoods, a London based forest school dedicated to encouraging our kids to explore life and connect with nature. Our mission is to provide a nurturing environment where children can learn about the natural world, develop new skills, and foster a love for the great outdoors.
Long-Term, Regular Sessions:
Forest School involves ongoing sessions, often spread across seasons, to allow for in-depth exploration and development. Long-term sessions over time allow children to blossom, build resilience, and develop a keen appreciation for their natural environment.
Child-Led Learning:
Children are encouraged to lead their own learning through activities and exploration, with trained practitioners providing support All ages are welcome in our sessions and we find that having different age groups can help children develop positive relationships with others outside of their normal age range, whilst learning from each other.
Hands-On Experiences:
Learning is primarily experiential and hands-on, with children actively participating in activities that stimulate their senses and skills.
Holistic Development:
Forest School aims to support development across physical, social, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual areas.
Risk Management:
Children are given opportunities to explore and manage risks in a safe and supervised environment, which helps them develop resilience and confidence.
Nature as a Classroom:
The natural environment itself becomes the classroom, with children learning about plants, animals, weather, and other natural phenomena. We try to use natural materials wherever possible in our activities, which include foraging for resources in the natural environment in which the sessions are held.
Focus on Skills:
Forest School helps children develop a range of skills, including problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and decision-making.
Connection to Nature:
The program aims to foster a deeper connection between children and the natural world, encouraging respect and appreciation for the environment.
The Forest School ethos has 6 principles
(published by the Forest School Association in 2011) and full information can be found...
-
Forest School is a long-term process of regular sessions, rather than one-off or infrequent visits; the cycle of planning, observation, adaptation and review links each session.​
-
Forest School takes place in a woodland or natural environment to support the development of a lifelong relationship between the learner and the natural world.
-
Forest School uses a range of learner-centred processes to create a community for being, development and learning.
-
Forest School aims to promote the holistic development of all involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.
-
Forest School offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves.
-
Forest School is run by qualified Forest School practitioners, who continuously maintain and develop their professional practice.
We develop our children's learning through an ongoing cycle of:
We regularly share children’s experiences of their Forest School sessions through photos and verbatim feedback garnered during sit-down time at the end of each session, where children are invited to discuss what they liked and didn’t like and put forward ideas of how to improve future sessions.