LOtC
What is our vision for Forest School at St Mary of the Angels?
- To nurture our children’s love of, and appreciation for, God’s creation
- To develop children’s understanding of stewardship
- To provide opportunities for children to develop and have fun in a safe and stimulating environment
- To facilitate children’s understanding of risk taking, choice making and ownership of their own learning
Learning Outside the Classroom
Learning outside the classroom is an integral part of life at St Mary's. We place high value on enabling children to get outside and experience their learning in a natural environment. Last year, Forest School was very popular with the children and this year we aim to build on the children's skills and develop their confidence in recognising the abilities they have.
Forest School is an inspirational learning journey, which offers ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in our woodland and natural outdoor environment. In addition, we plan to expand our Forest School provision beyond our school site to local beauty spots - such as Rivacre Valley - and places of historical importance. In doing so, we instantly add flesh to the bones of the creative curriculum which underpins everything we strive for here at St Mary's.
What to wear during winter sessions:
- Base layer – long sleeve t shirt (or old pyjama top). You may want to double up in winter months.
- Mid layer – an old, warm jumper that you don’t mind getting wet or muddy
- Outer layer – a waterproof coat with a hood.
- Legs - tights, long johns, leggings, old pyjama bottoms and tracksuit trousers over the top. Waterproof trousers if possible
- Footwear – old trainers, walking boots or wellies are perfect
- Extras - a warm, woolly hat, gloves, and scarf.
What to wear during summer sessions:
- Base layer – preferably a long-sleeved t-shirt although a short-sleeved t-shirt may suffice if the weather is hot
- Outer layer – a thin, waterproof jacket or coat
- Legs – long tracksuit bottoms are essential. These help to avoid bites and stings during the summer months.
- Footwear – old trainers, walking boots or wellies are perfect
- Extras - a freshly filled water bottle, sun cream applied before school.
Thursday 12th September 2024 - Year 6
Year 6 thoroughly enjoyed their wet but wonderful Forest School session with Jon. Our session focused on World War II and what this period in time would have been like for soldiers and for civilians. Despite the weather, we managed to travel along an obstacle course in role as an injured soldier as well as being able to build a miniature Anderson shelter using natural resources. Once we had taken a break with a hot chocolate and a biscuit, it was straight back to learning what life would've been like during WWII for soldiers in battle by building our own stretchers to carry our injured comrades to safety.
Thursday 19th September 2024 - Year 5
Year 5 had a brilliant first session of the year working on our understanding of multi-step instructions. With the sun shining in the sky, we also developed our understanding of key geogrpahical language such as scale and navigation by touring the school site and planting items for other groups to find using aerial maps that we created ourselves which we had drawn to scale. We finished the session with a fun game of 'beat the rope' and thankfully everyone managed to navigate the challenge successfully with no injuries!
Thursday 19th - Friday 20th September - Year 6 Residential
The weather was much brighter for Year 6 during their residential than it was during their first Forest School session! Our trip to Conway was a complete success, and it included a wide range of inclusive activities for us to take part in. Firstly, we built life rafts using poles, barrels and ropes before taking part in a night line activity. After a tasty evening meal and a good night's sleep, it was time for us to take part in either rock climbing or mountain biking. Both activities were equally enjoyable and the children had a wonderful time. What a way to start off their time in Year 6!
Thursday 25th September - Year 4
Year 4 had an extremely wet forest schools session this week, but it was certainly didn't dampen our fun! We started the day with some team building strategies, including trying to get everybody to fit onto a really small area. We had to learn to work together and help each other. We especially enjoyed an activity where we used knots to make log-dogs. By the end of this, we had learnt the resilience and collaboration. We ended the session by making some really cool shelters to shelter us from the rain! Finally, we made a fire to enjoy our marshmallows and hot chocolate Thank you Jon!
Thursday 3rd October 2024 - Year 3
Year 3 were blessed with wonderful weather for their first Forest School session of the year! Our learning was all centred around the Stone Age and we completed so many activities! We began our session learning how to do a clove hitch knot - we found it really tricky to begin with but with some perseverance we all managed to successfull use the clove hitch to make a Stone Age bow and arrow. We then had a carousel of activities to complete, including: making a roundhouse out of natural resources, making bread and making a Stone Age axe. We finished off our session with a toasted marshmallow around the fire!
Wednesday 9th October 2024 - Year 2
Year 2 had a wonderful morning in Forest School and thankfully we didn't get too wet. We had great fun playing some parachute games and working together to pinpoint our location on an aerial map of our school. When we were confident at using the aerial maps, Jon then introduced grid references. We had to hid a cuddly animal and give the grid reference to another group to find. The children's map reading skills were brilliant and everyone had a lot of fun. To end the session, Jon lit a fire and we enjoyed toasted marshmallows.
Thursday 17th October 2024 - Year 1
Year 1 had a wonderful time for our Forest School session in Rivacre Valley. We were incredibly sensible when we walked there and we listened to our adults to cross roads safely. In Rivacre Valley we enjoyed a trasure hunt and colour matching activity. We needed to find different coloured leaves to put on our colour strip. We were very impressed when someone found a purple leaf! We enjoyed a biscuit and hot chocolate whilst chatting with our friends. Best of all there were lots of muddy puddles to walk through!
Thursday 24th October 2024 - EYFS
EYFS had a fantastic first Forest School session and were all very excited to put on our wellies and explore the outdoor area where we jumped in muddy puddles and found plants, trees and even a few minibeasts! We enjoyed using the hammock and the rope swing, built dens for the teddies and a fabulous obstacle course using natural materials. We used leaves and twigs to create crowns and loved toasting marshmallows and drinking hot chocolate. We had a great time and are already really looking forward to our next session!
Thursday 14th November 2024 - Year 5
Year 5 had a brilliant Viking inspired Forest School session with Jon this weekend. The children were split into groups and recapped how to tie knots from Year 4 to help with the lashing needed to hold the boat’s masts together. Group 1 then cut and sanded the bases of their Viking longboats whilst Group 2 used nails and hammers to create Viking runes on planks of wood before weaving wool around the nails. Finally, everyone sawed wood cookies using a hand-saw to create ‘shields’ for our Viking longboats. Back in class, we learned all about what the Vikings used their shields for and what it taught us about the lives of the Viking people. We then assembled our deck, mast, sail and shields and set about evaluating the success of our project.
Today's Year 5 blog was written by Emmie.
Friday 12th December 2024 - Year 1
This week Year 1 had a fabulous Forest School session where the children were allowed to use real tools to create a Christmas decoration. First the children needed to saw a wood slice from a tree branch. They then used a hand drill to make a hole before putting a small piece of a pine Christmas tree in! We think they look brilliant. We also took part in parachute games, had a hot chocolate to warm our hands up and finished the session with a toasted marshmallow.
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