Forest School 

Gumboots at the ready!!!!

What a brilliant bit of muddy play our gumboot-wearing students have enjoyed this week in Forest School!! Our gumboots from home, teamed with our fabulous little plastic overalls have proven to be a huge success in keeping off the mud.

More and more little forest fun foragers are bringing their gummies in a plastic bag or simply wearing them to school. 

I recently described the Forest School program to a retired teacher and after a while they said “So it’s Boy Scouts on steroids!”. Once I stopped laughing I had to concede the similarities.

In a society that really values cleanliness and safety (and rightly so) the Forest School program offers children rare opportunities to experience safe boundaries through carefully managed risk-taking. We use real metal hand tools, after adult safety instruction and are allowed to climb trees but only “as high as our heads” and after lots of soft-fall materials like bark chips and pine needles have been placed around the roots. We learn whittling of wood with real blades and experience fire-lighting and all the safety around those serious activities. We create our own rope swings with rope and sticks, after lots of learning about safe knots and boundaries near the swing zone to keep others safe. 

A huge part of this supervised risk-taking is problem-solving based and it’s almost mind blowing to hear students spontaneously engaged in rule setting and revising and resetting rules together, as needed to ensure everyone’s safety; to be sure play is equitable for all and to care for equipment and the environment we play in. Your children daily amaze me with their powerful leadership and teamwork skills and there are few better places to hone these than in the Forest School program. 

Check out some of our recent marvellous misadventures! 

Ginny Tulloch 😊

Forest School Specialist Teacher