rocure lan FEATURE
33
I
t would be wonderful if every child could have access to a Forest School, but for the foreseeable future it is not likely that this will happen. Even for three- and four-year-olds provision is patchy, although it is spreading, and for younger
and older children it is even more thinly spread. It is therefore up to individual settings to take what they can from the best of Forest School and incorporate it into their outdoor regimes. In this way all children can benefit from a consideration of what is the specialness of Forest School and how some of that can be introduced into all outdoor play provision. to distil the specialness of Forest School, it
is necessary to return to a consideration of what makes a Forest School different from other outdoor experiences.having done that, we can consider three issues: What are the Forest School headings that are a part of normal onsite outdoor play; what are areas for development under the different early years curricula in the UK; and what things do settings need to address to add Forest School activities to their offering? the ethos of Forest Schools can be described
under the following headings: 1. the setting is not the usual one 2. the Forest School is made as safe as is reasonably possible, in order to facilitate children’s risk-taking
3. Forest School happens over time 4. there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing
5. trust is central 6. the learning is play-based and, as far as possible, child-initiated and led
7. the blocks and the sessions have beginnings and ends
8. the sessions are run by a trained Forest School leader.
Item 5 would hopefully be irrelevant where children are playing in their usual setting with their usual carers. Items 3, 4 and 7 were addressed by the 2008 Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, which stated that all children up to the end of their fifth year should go outside at some point every day, which led to many settings enabling free-flow play between indoors and outdoors. the consequence of this should be that many settings for this age group are able to provide sufficient outdoor access so that children can freely engage with the outdoor environment in tune with their own interests and rhythms, and those settings enable children to experience rain, shine, and all the other variations of weather that make up their environment. Similarly, the other countries in the UK have curricula that
as soon as
adults are prepared to be outside in all weathers, the children will be willing to follow suit
emphasise the importance of outdoor provision in the early years. For these changes to take place, willing settings
may need to make changes to their premises, but often change can start through smaller alterations, to things such as attitude and
planning.adult attitudes to the outdoors as a part of the normal learning environment can help to make big
changes.regarding outdoors as a learning environment with equal validity to indoors requires a culture shift starting with a revision of attitudes to the
weather.as soon as adults in settings are prepared to be outside in all weathers, the children will be willing to follow suit. It is the adults who do not wish to be outside in extreme weather conditions, not the children. But the adult role is to make access in all weathers a practical possibility. Babies in Denmark and other countries are outside in their prams in all weathers, and 50 years ago that was the norm in this country, too. We may need to consider how to insulate modern prams to previous standards to ensure that babies are warm enough, and we may need to provide more robust outdoor clothing for crawlers and toddlers. When there is a demand, manufacturers will follow, as can be seen by the greater number of all- weather suits available for older children. Making changes to planning regimes means
incorporating the outdoor space into the same set of plans as the indoor space. Whatever planning schemes are used, the way in which the different spaces are utilised expresses the attitudes and values of the setting. For example, if mark-making equipment is available indoors and outdoors in a setting, then the outdoor space is probably seen as a learning environment, not just a space for letting off steam. Children will pick up on these attitudes. as richard Louv said in his book Last Child in the Wood: Saving Our Children fromnature- Deficit Disorder, the youth are sensitive to the unspoken and hidden messages from adult behaviour. It is therefore important to communicate through the hidden curriculum that the outdoor space, and thus by inference the environment, is a valued space that should be engaged with. Planning, a process that children are not always included in, is usually a part of that hidden agenda.
OFFER
Readers of EdExec are entitled to 20% off and free postage and packing on the second edition of Forest School and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years by Sara Knight. To take advantage of this offer, go to SagePub.
co.uk and enter discount code UK13EM068 at checkout. Valid until 30th September 2013
www.edexec.co.uk / september 2013
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72