Forest School is a unique form of outdoor education, which has enormous value on a child.

Forest School: 

• is a long-term process of regular weekly sessions.
• takes place in a woodland or natural environment to develop a lifelong relationship between the learner and the natural world.
• encourages the children to take risks.
• aims to promote holistic development: resilience, confidence, independence and creativity.
• has to be run by a qualified Forest School practitioner.

Here at Dallimore we use our woodland area within the school grounds. Sometimes we also take the children to green space within our community e.g. Pioneer Meadows and Victoria Park.

We encourage the children to be out in all weathers with the appropriate clothing, this includes:

• Waterproofs
• Comfortable trousers (joggers)
• T-shirt, light and long sleeved
• Jumper
• Fleecy jacket
• One pair of socks
• Wellies

Depending what time of year, it can vary what the child may need e.g. sun hat during summer and hat, gloves and scarves during winter.

During the Forest School sessions, we will take part in a lot of different activities these may include:

As the children take part in the above activities we hope to encourage the children to develop a range of skills:

• Independence
• Imagination
• Risk taking
• Initiate learning
• Develop lifelong skills
• Be healthy
• Encourage well being
• To enjoy and achieve
• Be creative
• Gain confidence

Sessions are planned to suit both an individual and the group as a whole, but there is opportunity for the children to access a lot of freedom, this also helps to develop the children mentally, physically and spiritually.

The School will often share Forest School pictures on the Facebook page and class Dojo.