7th-9th March
I have started the week positively; I have decided to run every morning for half an hour before I start working on my Forest School essay and I have also started a diet. I really want to be fit and healthy when I open Canopy Forest School and be a good model for living a healthy lifestyle. Starting writing after a run has really helped me to start my work with a clear head and I have enjoyed all the research and come across lots of connections and Golden Threads as I have worked. The work of Bruner has really inspired me, and his theories sum up my beliefs about teaching. I love the way he draws on stories and it made me think about my own work and my on-line portfolio that I put together a few years ago where I wrote about my own teaching philosophy and beliefs
I really enjoy the way in which this course has drawn together so many of my own ideas, thinking and my teaching and life experience.
9th-16th March
This week I have continued with the essay and I have also at the same time made a connection between Bruner’s work and the work I am doing at school at the moment about the Golden Thread. We must talk about the Golden Thread running through our curriculum subjects mine are Art and Design and Art, Craft and Design and I completely understand now how the learning is built from past experiences now and how the Golden Thread idea works. I have also been drawn to the work of Mortlock and it made me make connections to the time I spent travelling and working abroad. I know that this experience made me step outside of my comfort zones and it was also the time in my life where I learnt the most about myself and it taught me that I can do more than I ever expected I could. All the theories fit so well with my own ideas and thinking and it has been so good to read writings that sum up these experiences.
16th-22nd March
I have nearly completed my essay and am putting together my appendices. While I have been writing this essay I have had the chance to relook at my ethos adapt and change my core values and have written my mission statement. It has been good to review and look at these and consolidate my ideas, values and dreams for this Forest School. I have been able to make sure all the theories I have written about are entrenched and are the foundations of the programme and these will lead all that takes place and happens in the Forest School programme.
23rd-31st March
This week I have really got into the next assignment which is about the “Forest School Approach to learning”. It has been good to draw everything I have been learning in the past few months together and see how they are all connected to the principles of Forest Schools. It has also been interesting to understand on a deeper level the reasons for these principles and the theories they are based upon. I have also learnt a lot more about the Archimedes Forest school approach especially the E.N.E.R.G.Y model and how these infiltrates into every principle.
