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  • 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,

     

    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.