What is Forest School?

It is a long-term program that supports play, exploration and supported risk-taking. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner-inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.

Forest School has a developmental ethos shared by thousands of trained practitioners around the world, who are constantly developing their learning styles and skills to support new and imaginative learners.

The process helps and facilitates more than knowledge-gathering, it helps learners develop socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually. It creates a safe, non-judgemental, nurturing environment for learners to try stuff out and take risks. Forest School inspires a deep and meaningful connection to the world and an understanding of how a learner fits within it. Our approach to risk means that learners constantly expand on their abilities by solving real-world issues, building self-belief and resilience. We believe that risk is more than just the potential for physical harm, but a more holistic thing; there are risks in everything we do, and we grow by overcoming them. Forest School, therefore, helps participants to become healthy, resilient, creative and independent learners.

There is lots of research out there to support the outcomes of Forest School, but we know that it isn’t just the educational outcomes and research that matter, our learners and leaders love it too!

Who participates?

At Daventry Hill Forest School, every student will participate in Forest School as part of our curriculum. Children will experience learning and development in an outdoor setting. This will happen through child-led exploration and play.

Our Forest School aims to develop:

• Resilience
• Respect
• Tolerance
• Community
• Intrinsic motivation
• Independence
• Positive mental attitude
• Self-esteem