Forest schoOL
Inside the four walls of a school classroom, children can gain knowledge and learn how to pass exams – but they are sedentary apart from a few PE lessons, and shut off from the natural world outside.
Yet being outdoors has huge benefits for children, both physically and mentally, and the growing phenomenon of Forest Schools aims to tap into those benefits by educating children in the fresh air.
The benefits of Forest School:
1. Building Confidence and Independence
Building dens, navigating with a compass and using a knife in woodwork are just some of the activities that instill children with confidence and a sense of independence.
Children feel empowered as they learn more about their own natural environment.
2. Feeling empathy for other and nature
Working as a team in a natural setting bonds children as a group. It also makes them aware of the need to care for each other and for the environment.
3. Physical Fitness
Running around and climbing trees develops muscle strength, aerobic fitness, and coordination.
4. Health Benefits
Studies have highlighted a multitude of health benefits to being outside -sunlight and soil microorganisms boost the body’s levels of serotonin, the chemical linked to feelings of wellbeing, while vitamin D, which is essential for bone and muscle health, is also provided by the sun’s rays.
5. Improved Mental Health
Today’s children are experiencing increased stress caused by a range of pressures, from school exams to social media. Mental-health professionals acknowledge that maintaining a relationship with nature can be very helpful in supporting children’s emotional and mental wellbeing.
6. Learning by experience
Research suggests young children learn best from experience, by using their senses actively rather than passively, and it’s via these experiences that learning remains with us into adulthood.
7. Exposure to manageable risk
At Forest School, children can run and make a noise, get their hands dirty and experience manageable risk, which is essential for healthy child development, through activities such as supervised fire building and cooking
8. Better sleep and mood
Children – and adults – sleep more deeply after either playing outside or going for a long walk, and mood lifts just from breathing in a few lungfuls of fresh air.
9. Learning about spiritual meaning
Outside the confines of four walls, without the distractions of electronic devices and excessive supervision, children can move, explore and discover at their own pace, connecting to the natural world – a place not created by man, that had deep spiritual meaning for our ancestors.
