The History of Forest Schools

at Holland Haven Primary School

This is the best kind of classroom,
It’s a journey through time and space
From the smallest seed to the largest tree,
This is a Forest and learning place.
This is the best kind of classroom,
Where the seasons don’t happen in books
Where the learning is watching & thinking and talking
And everyone notices & everyone looks!

Our 'Forest Schools' Journey

At Holland Haven we are fortunate to have an on-site woodland area - Hadley Wood - and so in 2010 we asked our pupils if Forest Schools was something they would like to begin at our school. We knew of a local primary school that were already practicing Forest Schools so Miss Cole and Mrs Hall arranged for our School Council to visit them so they could find out more... At the school our pupils participated in a Forest Schools session. Needless to say, they came back inspired! They shared their experiences in a whole-school assembly and sent a letter to the school to say thank-you.

The School Council then set about organising fund-raisers to raise money for the resources (including a shed) needed to run our own Forest Schools on-site. A member of our parent comittee built the foundations of our new shed ready for us to stock full of tarpulin, tent pegs, gardening equipment, buckets, trowls and more!

Hadley Wood has since been developed to enable lots of Forest Schools activities to take place. For example we have an inbuilt camp fire that Mr Bradbury, our site manager, very kindly built for us, a mud pit and a teepee! Our last Headteacher bought us our teepee as a gift for us to keep when she retired. 
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Mrs Hall - Forest School Lead until 2019
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Miss Cole - Forest Schools-trained and Strategic Lead (Deputy Headteacher)
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Mrs Impey - Forest School Lead 2019 onwards

Forest Schools Training

Mrs Hall and Miss Cole undertook a weekend of Forest Schools training in Bury St Edmunds in 2010. They had a great time learning new skills and have since been able to cascade 'Forest Schools' practice across the school to other members of staff. Since 2011, Forest Schools has been included in HH's curriculum timetable for all of our pupils at least once every three weeks. 
Forest Schools Activities

Our favourite activities include cooking, bug-hunting, creating mud creatures and building dens. We cook a range of food such as noodles, sausages, popcorn and 'smores' (roasted marshmallows wrapped in chocolate  biscuits) around the campfire. Other  activities have included making wooden necklaces, building a nest using tweezers like a beak, whittling branches using a potato peeler and using nature detective packs to find different types of leaves and insects.

Click here for lots of Forest Schools learning objectives 

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Click here for cross-curricular outdoor learning!
Outdoor Learning in the Forest

All classes participate in regular Forest Schools sessions as part of our curriculum timetable but in addition to this we also use the Forest to enhance learning in other subjects. For example, Reception have been on a fairy hunt, Lower School have built a Jewish Sukkah, Middle School have explored rocks in Science and Upper School have shared Aboriginal stories around the camp-fire.