Helen Parke is a Level 3 forest school leader and works with children from a range of settings within Shrewsbury. Helen had developed the forest school site with other team members. A forest school, without traditional walled boundaries, presents unique challenges for practitioners. It can impact on all areas of learning within the Early Years Foundation Stage. It is, however, important for the team to consider the health and safety aspects of provision. It was also important for Helen to create an emotionally safe environment for children, since the forest school does not have the familiar early years setting framework in which children work and play.
Standard 8 is 'Establish and sustain a safe, welcoming, purposeful, stimulating and encouraging environment where children feel confident and secure and are able to develop and learn'.
In fulfilment of this, Helen had created spaces within the forest, such as areas for building fires and shelters, a story area and an area for storing tools. Within these areas are lots of paths to explore among the trees.
Helen outlined advantages of the forest school. She explained that the ethos of the school was that children were able to develop independent skills and become confident explorers and learners. The children were able to set their own agenda for working within the forest - for example, one child wanted to build a spider's web using twigs and branches and another wanted to make paint by crushing berries. This offers children opportunities to collaborate and develop team work.
The assessor got the impression that forest schools should be accessible to all children.They offer a holistic curriculum whose strands are woven together rather than disparate.
The setting visit for this candidate was going to be different and challenging compared with other setting based assessments, since accompanying the written documentation were instructions that the assessor had to bring 'Wellington boots and a waterproof coat'!
