More and more children are accessing the curriculum through the forest school approach, which is being adopted by a growing number of UK settings.
Forest schools can take on many different forms, and do not even have to be held in woodland, but there are several common features that set them apart from simply learning in the outdoors. Research conducted jointly by Liz O'Brien from Forest Research and Richard Murray of the New Economics Foundation found that forest schools adopt a constructivist approach, giving children the time and space to make meaning of the world through experimentation and hands-on experience.
Rather than use classroom resources and equipment, great reliance is given to using natural materials found in the woodland, helping children develop both gross and fine motor skills through collecting sticks and leaves to make dens, tying knots, handling tools, using twigs to write in the mud, climbing trees, jumping across stones and building fires.
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