Pinewood Infant School and Foundation Unit 'Together we give children the roots to grow and the wings to fly'
Forest School
'Together we give children the roots to grow and the wings to fly'
Forest School at Pinewood....
.....and so the adventure begins
Forest School is a child-centred, inspirational learning process, that offers opportunities for holistic growth through regular sessions. It is a long-term program that supports play, exploration and supported risk-taking. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.
Here at Pinewood we offer a wonderful natural environment in our school grounds which includes a huge pond for the children to explore. We are also situated close to the local Hobbucks Nature Reserve which provides an exciting extension to our setting.
Our weekly Forest School sessions allow us to deeply embed our Pinewood Values:
Self-belief, Resilience, Curiosity, Respect, Responsibility, Honesty, Independence and Kindness
We highly value the importance of play at Pinewood and play and choice are an integral part of the Forest School learning process. We therefore offer our children a variety of experiences which they can choose to play and return to time and time again! See below to name but a few:
Digging Area, Mud Kitchen, Tyre Rolling, Trim Trail, Bug Hunting, Den Building, Small World Play,
June 2025
Risk-Taking
The children discovered how to move each other from one area of our grounds to another. They worked together to solve problems and took risks into their own hands by tying a rope to a crate and dragging each other around for a ride. Hold tight!
May 2025
Look up above you!
We have been looking up at our tree canopy in Forest School. Look what we saw... An amazing net-like structure of silk which the caterpillars created to provide additional protection to enclose their chrysalis!
We also saw a blue tit feeding its chicks in our bird box where they are nesting!
Spiders
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April 2025
Spiders!
We have been learning all about spiders. When went on a spider hunt at Forest School and found spiders in their natural habitat. This inspired us to make our own spider webs. We made mini webs using sticks and white wool. Then we created a huge spider web, working co-operatively as a team.
March 2025
Creative and Imaginative play
Our Forest School sessions foster creative and imaginative play by providing a natural, unstructured learning environment where our children are free to explore, experiment and create their own experiences.
Check out our hot tub, swimming pool and coffee machine!
February 2025
Clay face sculptures
We had such fun making clay alien faces on our tree trunk. We used mud to create our aliens then we used natural materials like leaves and twigs for features.
January 2025
The Big Bird Watch
We had such fun at Forest School making our own bird feeders using pinecones, lard and bird seed.
We hung our bird feeders in the trees at Forest school, then hid in our home- made bird hide to observe the different types of birds that came to feed!
December 2024
Experiencing the season of Winter
We go out in all weathers to experience the different seasons. This was such a fun team-building session in the snow!
November 2024
Investigating ice
The weather has been sooo cold, when we visited our school pond we found that it was frozen solid!
We investigated the ice showing our value of curiosity.
October 2024
Autumn leaves
We enjoyed raking and collecting lots of Autumn leaves in our Forest School session. We used the Autumn leaves to make our very own Pudsey Bear to celebrate Children in Need. This was a huge team effort and we showed our value of resilience as the wind kept blowing the leaves away!
September 2024
Digging for worms
After enjoying the story 'Super worm' by Julia Donaldson the children were keen to find their own super worm! We carefully handled the worms to see which one was the longest! We carefully returned them to their natural habitat showing our values of kindness and responsibility.
