Heatherlands Primary School
Enjoying Learning Together
Forest School & The Valley
Forest School uses the outdoor environment to help all children learn. Children are encouraged to develop independence skills, improve their decision-making, and raise their self-esteem through small achievable tasks. This links to the Heatherlands Primary School Values of: Independence, Resilience, Aspiration, Motivation and Respect.
Heatherlands Forest School Handbook
Year 5 played team games to work on their communication and leadership skills. First one team member had to memorize a Lego structure to then instruct the rest of the team to build, followed by untying themselves from a human knot. Then they played friendship games and practised their knot tying and plaiting skills to make friendship bracelets for each other. If that was not enough, they capped it off with a game of Pictionary.
Spring Forest School. Year 3 got to grips with making their own animal hides and exploring what it is like to be a bird hunting for camouflage caterpillars. Then practised their weaving skills with a session on making Gods eyes.
Year 4 played Pictionary in teams. First, they had to work together to solve the picture clue, then spell out the clue correctly, before negotiating an obstacle course and then getting back in the correct order to present their answer. They also explored the many trees on the school grounds, identifying different species and finding out their height. Finally, they had a session making teepees - learning to tie knots and work as a team.
Spring Forest School. Year 1 enjoyed making compasses and hiding treasure using map coordinates. Then they made clay faces with natural resources from the nature trail. Finally, they sorted rubbish into recycling, compostable waste and reuseable items before collecting natural resources to sort and categorize.
Year 2 enjoyed teepee building using knot tying and square lashing. Then used team work to play tarp flipping and pass the hula hoop around the circle. Finally they were asked to investigate how to make a paper ball hard enough to knock a stack of tin cans over.
Here is a link to the Forest School Association webpage which will give more information on the ethos behind the initiative.
http://www.forestschoolassociation.org/full-principles-and-criteria-for-good-practice/