What is Forest School?
Forest School is a long-term outdoor education programme, delivered by trained practitioners in a natural setting. Typical activities include games, storytelling, natural art, climbing trees, using tools for crafts, exploring nature and quiet reflection.
Its ethos is to allow each child the space and time to learn through practical experience. It supports many areas of the Irish Primary School Curriculum and Aistear, within a rich, natural, child-led learning environment. At its core is the principle of creating a community for being, developing and learning.
What does Forest School look like for an Irish primary school?
This video shows a typical "Forest Friday" for Dalkey School Project. See Nature Based Learning in action!
6 Principles of Forest School
Regular sessions
Woodland setting
Community
Holistic development
Opportunity to take risks
Qualified practitioners
Our experience of Forest School has very much validated the huge body of research that supports an outdoor learning approach for children’s development, mental health and wellbeing. We have also seen children grow in resilience, empathy and creative thinking as they spend time with their classmates in the forest.”
Miriam Hurley, Retired Principal, Dalkey School Project N.S.
How does Forest School support the primary school curriculum?
The Forest School approach supports the aims of the Primary School Curriculum - encouraging a love of learning, developing each child’s potential to the full and providing lifelong skills. It provides a framework to assist schools in delivering the Education for Sustainable Development goals, a key part of our EU and UN commitments towards a more sustainable future for all. Moreover, learning in nature increases wellbeing and self-esteem and decreases anxiety.
For more see: NCCA Curriculum Online, ESD 2030
The Arts
The Forest School programme integrates process-led arts and crafts, music, drama and storytelling with opportunities for place-based learning and a rich exploration of Irish cultural heritage through nature.
Social, environmental and scientific
History, geography and science come alive within the natural environment as curiosity about their surroundings invites children to explore and examine more closely - from bug hunts to wondering about an old building to observing the effects of climate change up close. .
Language
As children express curiousity and delight in their surroundings, oral and written language become vital means of expression. Gaeilge comes alive as children name the natural world and celebrate the changing seasons through poetry and song.
Physical Education
Through games, risky play (including lifting, climbing and running) children of every ability can work on their physical skills in a low-pressure environment. Free-play also enables children to develop their own games, requiring strategic thinking and co-operation.
Mathematics
The Forest School environment provides many practical opportunities for integrating mathematics in a way that children feel is essential to their experience - from organising natural found objects into sets, observing patterns to exploring weight and angles while constructing a sturdy den from branches.
Social, personal and health
Time spent in nature has been shown to have significant benefits for children’s health, wellbeing and self-confidence. It also promotes children’s awareness of themselves, others and their wider community.
Ethical Education
The natural world provides a rich environment for learning about spirituality and religious practices. Many traditions draw on the natural world as a source of inspiration and place of reflection.