6 Ways In Which A Forest School Leader Helps Learning At Forest School
In this article I thought we’d take a closer look at the key person at Forest School.
The Forest School Leader.
But what is one of those? They are kind of like the teacher in any session.
However, instead of being at the centre of everything they are the helper and guide to beautiful destinations.
Always there in the background to enhance learning, keep children safe and provide future opportunities based on their incredible skill sets.
It takes a Leader one whole year to gain the qualification and they almost always come from an educational background. Not always. But mostly as it links beautifully with the nature of the work with children.
I remember when I took on my training and how it aligned with my understanding of how children should be taught and learn best.
It literally was my epiphany moment that changed my life for the better after years of being told I wasn’t good enough as a teacher…
Because I simply didn’t fit a mould I was being graded against.
Moving forward in this article I’d like to go deeper into 6 ways in which a Forest School leader helps learning at a Forest School session and how this differs from a teacher.
1. They Guide Learners To Finding Their Own Answers.
A Forest School Leader instigates a culture that knowledge attitudes, skills and habits are co-constructed and it is simply not handed to a child on a plate.
They have to work for their supper!
Handing knowledge to a child I would argue is ineffective as it causes children to rely on being spoon fed or at the furthest end of the spectrum learnt helplessness.
This is when a child learns to purposefully not do simple things for themselves as an adult always does it for them in the first place and example would be zipping up a coat.
Co- construction of new learning holds much more value and significance in the mind of the learner not to mention empowering them to strive even further.
2. They Model The Key Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills and Habits.
At certain times something a child may be finding difficult will be modelled, particularly our youngest explorers to give them a framework.
A reference point if you will, but that is all.
As long as there is no significant harm going to come to that child they are invited to explore different ways of approaching something using the modelled framework as a foundation to build on.
Great rewards come from persistence, resilience and exploration of ideas, creativity, problem solving and co-operation with other children allowing them to make new meaning from their experiences.
3. They Use Open Questioning.
When a framework is referenced, new learning is being constructed or new meaning isn’t quite making sense for a learner, a leaders open questioning can help a child explore their thinking and perceptions of a situation.
For example ‘What do you think about that’ or ‘How are you feeling about this’.
This type of questioning pushes into the realms of metacognition- ‘thinking about thinking’ first suggested by Aristotle.
Often as parents, teachers and facilitators we can get pulled into asking closed questions that probe for knowledge or understanding of that child.
For example ‘Can anyone remember what…..’
By drawing a child’s attention to their thinking and understanding a Forest School Leader is asking them to go deeper into their truths, misconceptions and re-interpretations, leading to a deeper level of self attunement and reflection.
Simply they become more connected with themselves and are able to learn from their mistakes leading to more successful destination.
4. They Use Reflection
Through reflective practices, during and at the end of a play set or session, can lead to some wonderful ‘ah ha’ moments and appreciation of achievements.
Such practice is helped by open questioning and being able to see how certain things impact the bigger learning picture in a child’s mind.
It also assists in forward planning for the future session as through reflection they can identify what went well or did not and how this can be tweaked, altered or kept.
5. They Reverse Engineer Their Planning
Forest School Leaders are very good at planning in the moment to attune with the needs of the learners due to the sessions child led nature.
This helps children follow their learning desires and also be super self motivated and empowered.
Following a session the planning continues by reflecting on the children’s reflections and the session itself.
Here planning from that session can be reverse engineered by being written up AFTER the event and inform what is possibly coming the next session.
This allows a Leader to bring along particular resources to enhance play the next time. This I will call the outline plan. This is certainly not a fixed formula though.
Children from week to week or even day to may choose to explore different areas of their holistic development through play.
They have their own agenda and a Forest Leader is more than cool with that.
Therefore, an outline plan is never set in stone and is there simply to enhance, if chosen, but if not then it becomes all the more fun.
6. They Bring The Fun.
A Forest Leader makes every session fun. When things are fun children don’t know they’re learning.
Children are generally self motivated by being in charge of their own play but fun adds to the experience and makes it more memorable.
Plus it makes those colder, wetter days outside more enjoyable and morale high.
It can also help to calm and settle a child who is nervous about entering or exploring the forest environment which is more common than you may expect.
So there you an outline of what a Forest School Leader is all about and 6 ways they helps learning at Forest School.
