It could be School in the Forest branded items or things that you have seen us use and would like to use them in your own setting.

All ideas would be greatly received!

Met Office weather reports for the week ahead don’t make for good reading with temperatures not feeling much higher than freezing for the whole week and in the shade of the forest it won’t even feel like that.

In order to prepare all of our clients who come to spend some time with us School in the Forest has produced the following advice ‘Being Prepared for your time outside’ which we hope will help to make your time memorable for the right reasons.

So PLEASE if you are coming to Holiday Club this week read it carefully!

Watch this space for photos of School in the Forest using their new Fire Wok with our clients!

The worrying thing about this report is that it indicates that the education and health of children are suffering as a result of this.

The report indicates that parental worries of safety as well as the lure of electronic gadgets are the biggest cause for this lack of experience.

School in the Forest says don’t let this worry you. We can provide children with these experiences and the safe and supervised atmosphere.

The report also goes on to cite evidence that shows:

• children learn more and behave better when lessons are conducted outdoors
• symptoms of children diagnosed with ADHD improve when they are exposed to nature
• children say their happiness depends more on having things to do outdoors more than      owning technology.

All of these are pretty worrying, but can be quickly resolved with more time outdoors. So why not look at what School in the Forest has going on at the moment!

For more information on this why not visit the BBC report here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17495032

BBC Breakfast 19/03/2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17404382

Many may also be surprised that in my 8 years of teaching experience I have know this to happen.

In many cases I have always thought that there could be more done, that the schools and the Senior Leadership Team could have tried different things before going down the road of a permanent exclusion that can have such a devastating effect on a child’s furute.

This feeling was compounded when I moved down to Bristol from Worcestershire where forest schools are used as a tool to turn children in danger of exclusion around.

In many cases it worked well. The children were not confined by the structure of a traditional classroom. they didn’t have the constraints of writing in a traditional way or learning by traditional means.

Forest Schools gave these children autonomy and ownership of their learning. Forest Schools allowed these children to learn in a practical way. Forest Schools allowed these children to experience success where they would have found it difficult in a traditional setting.

These things had a massive impact on children from Worcestershire and I am sure that they could do the same thing for children in Bristol and South Gloucestershire.

That is why School in the Forest was established. To have an impact on the few as well as the many!

Hopefully we will be able to help some individuals avoid a permanent exclusion and achieve something positive. Maybe even a John Muir award!

If you are interested in what we have said explore our website and see what we may be able to offer you.

We would love to hear your comments on our blog.

Follow this link to our contact page where you can leave us a message!