At Angel Court we have been lucky enough to be working with The Equal Arts Council and Elizabeth Baker, a writer and story teller from the North East. This is linked to our community...
At Harlow Green, we have developed an environment and curriculum which takes children beyond the classroom and places them into their natural environment as well as their community.
Forest School
Harlow Green is different from most schools in that it is a Forest School. The Forest School approach provides a hands-on, practical education in our outdoor environment. This part of the curriculum is managed by a qualified Forest School Leader – Miss Rowe – who continuously maintains and develops her professional practice. Miss Rowe is supported by Mr McMann during Forest School sessions. The Forest Education Community has put together the guiding principles for Forest Schools. These principles were agreed to ensure good practice across the country.
- Forest School is a long-term process of regular sessions, rather than a one-off or infrequent visits; the cycle of planning, observation, adaptation and review links each session.
- It takes place in a woodland or natural environment to support the development of a relationship between the learner and the natural world.
- We use a range of learner-centred processes to create a community for development and learning.
- Forest School aims to promote the holistic development of all those involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.
- It offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves.
Our approach at Harlow Green is centred on enabling children to develop a sense of independence and self-motivation, they become more courageous and can learn to realistically assess situations, are more self-reliant and opportunistic. This approach particularly supports the development of self-esteem and self-confidence. The focus in Forest School and Outdoor Learning is on short achievable tasks which then build in complexity based on observations of the children’s needs and interests.
Community Work
Developing children’s understanding about their local community and providing the opportunity to positively impact upon it is essential in developing the future generation. Through the regular curriculum but also through our outdoor curriculum, children are involved in projects which allows them to work within the local community in a variety of ways and to actively engage within it.
Year 2 and Year 5 documented their own Forest School sessions this week. This is just a snapshot of what they got up to. They made a boat from an upturned picnic table and sailed...
We were thrilled to have Ruth and Eve from Sylvan Skills working with some of our Year 5 children to re-dress our willow hens. Ruth started the session by showing the children how to...
Our Year 4s are really getting involved with this terms tree topic. We are learning about the importance of surveying and managing trees on our site. Management of them allows us to gain the...
Year 1 spent the afternoon learning how to recognise and describe the shapes of leaves on trees in our Forest School. In class we played a leaf sorting game, separating into 5 main leaf...
Nursery and Reception children have been learning about different leaf shapes particularly focusing on tree leaves. This activity encourages the children to really observe in more detail and at the same time they get...
This is a physical way or teaching the children about the parts of a tree, Year 4 threw themselves into the challenge and completed it both under instruction and then independently as a class....
Our children continue to learn about trees this month. Tree identification can be tricky, so we encourage them to become nature detectives and inspire them by setting activities that create links to their known...
From their very first steps into our Forest School the children learn how to manage potential risk whilst still gaining the benefit of the experience. This may be as simple as changing the speed...
