20th Dec-2nd January 2022
As I have come to the end of unit 3, I thought it would be a good idea to collate and record my learning journey throughout this unit so below is a summary of what I have personally found out and discovered within this section of the course:
· Learning theories and pedagogy some of which have been familiar while others have been new these include Maslow, Bruner, Kellert, Csikszentmihalyi, Gardner, Peck, Vygotsky, Morlock, Leavers, Hughes, Greenaway
· Observing and understanding how these theories can and have been applied in my own Forest School Practice
· Understanding the Forest School Approach to learning and the importance of the learner led nature of this educational approach, the learning community and the connection between this pedagogy and the outcomes.
· Understanding the history of holistic learning
· Understanding what holistic development is and how this is planned and used in forest school experiences
· Understanding the SPICES and PILES models for holistic development
· Understanding the links between the planning cycles and holistic development
·Understanding the importance of a long-term programme for the development of holistic skills
· Understanding self-esteem and emotional intelligence
· Understanding how the Forest school programme promotes and develops these skills
· Understanding the role of the Forest School leader
· Understanding what is meant by resilience, confidence, independence, and creativity
·Understanding how the Forest School ethos and approach allows these personal attributes to be developed
· Understanding the importance of benefit and risk assessments
· Understanding how taking risks is developed through the Forest School pedagogy
· Understanding the importance of teaching skills for appropriate risk taking
· Understanding the key principles of play and the links between these and Forest school practice
· Understanding how play supports holistic development
· Understanding the importance of play and holistic development
· Understanding the factors that can affect behaviour
· Understanding the range theories around behaviour
· Understanding methods of encouraging appropriate behaviour
· Reflecting upon all that I have learnt and how theory works in practice and the importance of the framework.
· Understanding the real importance of the Forest School ethos and the ethos of canopy Forest School and how this drives practice
· The importance of understanding the needs and interests of the learners
· That Forest school is about the process, not the product.
· That nature is central to the learning, the community, and the bond
3rd-10th January 2022
The Christmas holidays have been and gone so quickly but I am ready to get back and start our 3rd set of Forest School sessions. The weather will still be cold so lots of soup will be on offer for our snacks, but the light will gradually increase our theme for this half term will continue to be “Exploration”. I am hoping to get tracking skills and an interest in reading the natural environment into this half term.
I have also been busy putting together Unit 4 most of this has already been created while putting together my handbook and getting ready to set up Canopy Forest School at Chandler’s Ford Infant School. Putting all this together has been again interesting and helped me to see the journey that this course is taking me on.
Again, I thought it would be a good idea to collate and record my learning journey in Unit 4 so below is a summary of what I have personally found out and learnt within this section of the course:
· I have learnt and understand the history of Forest Schools and the difference between Forest School and Outdoor Learning
· I have looked at 2 different theories and how these apply to forest school and have really found these interesting and insightful and these have become part of my practice
· I have written up my ecological impact and really worked hard to start this and put it into practice
· This has helped me to design a three-year ecological Impact plan and again this has already been put to work and developments made
· I have produced my handbook and put this into practice and shared this with parents, volunteers and headteacher at the school
· I have put a risk assessment handbook in place again this is a working document that I use all the time in Forest School
· I have risk assessed my own sessions
· I have written up and produced my baseline assessments
· I have produced a communication strategy
All the items that I have produced have really helped me to put together a successful Forest School and I have been so pleased with what has taken place and how it has run, and this is because of all of the leadership I have had due to this course.
11th-17th January 2022
Our first session after Christmas went well and it was wonderful to see them all again and talk about what they had all been up to. During this session we talked about what exploration means and we used a compass and discussed how it worked and how it is used. The children then went off on their own discoveries and imaginary expeditions using compasses.
I have also been working hard to get Unit 5 completed and put together all of my baseline assessments and evidence that I collected in our first term. Again, I would like to collate all that I have learnt during this unit and by putting it all together I can really see the learning journey that we all went on:
· I wrote a case study on 3 children and really got to understand what they gained from their Forest School experience and how I can help and extend them further
· I completed my 6 sessions evaluations and wrote up my baseline assessments-this really helped me to appreciate the journey I had taken
· I completed my session reflections and thought about each session and evaluated them and made improvements and changes as we went along.
· I thought carefully about the learner’s behaviour and how this had an impact upon the group both positively and negatively and realised that the perfect comes from the imperfect as this is where we really grow and develop as a group
· I planned next steps for my 3 case study children and really thought about how we can take them on and develop them further
· I wrote a summative evaluation which really helped me focus on the strengths and weaknesses of our Forest School and helped me put a SWOT analysis together.
Again, this whole process made me realise the journey that we had all been on as a group and the progress that we had all made. It also made me understand all the principles of Forest School and their importance and why they are so effective.
18th-24th January
We have had another great session this week we continued with the idea of going on imaginary journeys and quests and the children wanted to make dens and a group pretended to be finding buried treasure. The imagination games that the group invent and create are wonderful and so nice to follow and watch. A few of the girls have been creating stories based around horses and unicorns so this week we made some hobby horses. They were delighted and it brought another element to their imaginary play. We also had some tree climbing and they are keen to learn more knots which is super.
25th-31st January
This week we continued with the idea of dens and exploring and used a story called “Hideout”. We had a go at some different stalking walks using animals as our inspiration. We also had lots of great dens created and I taught them how to tie a sheer lashings knot. They are enthused and excited about the theme and I would also like to move them onto looking for animal tracks soon.
