Forest School is an integral part of school life here at Wilfred Owen School.  All pupils participate in sessions from Nursery class to year 6.  Forest School allows children to gain an understanding of the natural environment whilst developing the Forest School ethos, namely, raising self-esteem, developing confidence, independence, improving language and communication skills, and using the out of doors to improve their mindfulness and mental heath.

Our children enjoy a range of activities from bug hunting, shelter building, team building activities, treasure hunts, and making mud pies!  Our children also enjoy creating their own games or playing more traditional games like hide and seek.  As well as these activities, our children also have the opportunity to learn new skills like tying knots, making fires and learning to use a range of tools. All of these skills enable the pupils to respect themselves and their environment as well as understanding how to stay safe and manage risk in the outdoor environment.

Forest School allows the opportunity for children to experience the outdoors through exploration by developing their understanding of a woodland environment and the conservation of such areas.  By teaching our children to respect and care for the environment, we are helping them gain a better understanding of the environment they live in and the world around them.

By providing our children with the opportunity to participate in regular Forest School sessions, we allow those children who are not necessarily academic, or confident in a classroom environment to shine.  We allow them to discover what they enjoy what they are good at and watch them flourish and grow in that.  As their confidence and enjoyment grows in the Forest, teachers also notice an improvement in their attitude to learning in the classroom too.

Some children relish in the challenge of Forest School and they are given many opportunities throughout their school life to face these challenges, enabling them to build more resilience and strength as they get older.  The last challenge our upper KS2 pupils face is “I’m a Survivor, Get me out of here!” This is complete with bushtucker trials and tricky tasks to win stars.  The pupils really enjoy this and love the whole experience – honest!

Forest School takes place in all weathers and all seasons, we believe that there is no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothing, so we expect all children and staff to come appropriately dressed.

As a parent in Shropshire once said:

 ‘You can wash away the mud, but you can’t wash away the experience’