What are Forest Schools
[Music]
hi there
my name is joan whelan and i’m
chairperson of the irish
forest school association i’m here on
this beautiful
april morning and very close to dublin
city
centre and very close to the site
where a local national school
established the first
irish forest school project
back in 2012 and indeed where it’s still
going strong so what’s forest school
well
it’s a it’s an old idea tracing its
lineage all the way back to uh people
like rousseau
at the very beginning uh to well-known
names like frebel and montessori
and john dewey and steiner
and i suppose really in a sentence it’s
about
making opportunities available to
children to experience nature
as a kind of a co-teacher and maybe
that’s something that we’ve lost
in our modern world
it’s a little bit i think um tarot said
something
about um as humans we sit within
nature’s embrace and maybe in our modern
world where
we’ve kind of um distorted that a little
bit
and seen ourselves as somehow above
or outside of nature and so i suppose
there’s a few key kind of principles
that are associated with forest school
and it’s
kind of modern um incarnation um
first of all access to woodland of some
sort and it doesn’t need to be an
ancient woodland
and because this kind of work i suppose
is very much about mindset as well
so it might be an unloved corner of a
local park or
school grounds or indeed it may be a
very beautiful ancient
woodland it can be in the middle of the
city or it might be in
a very rural area
and the most important thing i suppose
that idea of being in woodland
is about being in the woodland
and making opportunities through the
kind of um approaches that are
through the um opportunities that are
provided there
and to let the woodland teach you so one
of the key things about
forest school park pedagogy is that idea
of kind of moving
to the rhythms of nature using
the natural world as our clock
rather than a clock time
so that’s you know if we think of trees
long live it as they are
and that’s about the rhythms of nature
help us to slow down and
i think robert mcfarlane described it
recently
as in the context of the whole covet
thing
as nature being anchor points in a world
of chaos
so time slowing down and enabling us to
do that is a key part
of our school and if we want to do that
and learn how to do that well
we need to have repeated visits to the
forest so this is not about just going
to the forest once that’s brilliant
and but in the school context for
example we’re talking about taking the
children
once a week over the course of a term
ideally for over the course of the whole
year
for an extended period a minimum of two
to four m hours and that’s the only way
that we’re going to get
in tune with and get to know the seasons
and the rhythms
and help the rhythms of nature to inform
our being as humans and so a bit of
training is required for that obviously
it’s a specialized approach um and the
first school leader
is very much in the role um a
facilitator
and the elder of of the learning
community i suppose is another way
and to put it and the approach to
learning that’s fostered in forest
school is very much about
a holistic perspective so that longer
bit of time
gives you an opportunity to really get
stuck into the learning so it’s not
about subject
demarcations it’s about using the
resources
of nature in a playful way to help us
to deliver the curriculum if you’re
working in a primary school context
so for example i saw children making
rafts
using whittling sticks using iv to tie
them together and then taking them
to a stream to see what they float or
sink so you’re learning all your science
curriculum
you’re learning about the resources of
the forest you’re learning about your
own ability
to stick with processes
like that and to make a successful raft
for example and there’s risks associated
with it of course
and again it’s about um i suppose
seeing children as confident able
learners and us as the adults working
with them as able to foster that kind of
competence and that’s a really important
outcome of
any kind of nature connection activities
such as forest school
so it’s wonderful to have the
opportunity to work with organizations
like easy treasy
like crown who are focused on tree
planting
and because obviously far school can’t
happen if we don’t have the forests for
it to happen in
if you want to find out any more
information the irish forest school
association has a
website under that name and there’s lots
of material available
online thank you very much
you