We are extremely lucky at Clervaux Nursery School to have a well established site where our Forest School sessions take place. Our outdoor area enables our children to participate in engaging, motivating and achieveable tasks and actvities in a fabulous woodland environment. We have a Forest School Leader who is responsible for the planning, delivery and risk assessments and we also have two of our key workers, Beverly Stephenson and Jacqui Westhall who are also fully qualified Forest School Leaders. The Forest School ethos is at the heart of everything we do.
The philosophy of Forest Schools is to encourage and inspire individuals, of any age, to enjoy the opportunities offered by natural play, through positive outdoor experiences. Through these experiences, our children have the opportunity to develop intrinsic motivation, balanced emotional and social skills. These, through self awareness, can be developed to help reach personal potential. The Forest Schools philosophy has demonstrated success with children of all ages, where, through play and self-directed learning, they have the opportunity to learn about the natural environment, how to handle risks and most importantly, how to use their own initiative to solve problems and co-operate with others.
Our children access the outdoor environment in all kinds of weather (except for high winds), and while outside they use full sized tools, play, learn boundaries of behaviour – both physical and social – establish and grow in confidence and self-esteem, and become more self-motivated. What more could we want for our children?!
