Critical Evaluation of Learning and Play in Forest School

“At heart, all learning is about going from what is known and familiar to what is unknown and uncertain. So learning, growth and development depend upon risk. Outdoor environments offer the best opportunities for children to get to grips with the unpredictable, engaging, challenging world around them.” (Gill, 20017) This quotation from the notorious advocate of outdoor play Tim Gill encapsulates the importance and value of learning within an outdoor environment such as Forest School.

     In order to critically evaluate the value of learning and play in Forest Schools I felt it appropriate to use the seven areas of learning as outlined by Development Matters as a springboard and guideline to focus the evaluation.

         In terms of physical development, children can use the advantageous open spaces to fine tune the physical skills that they have acquired in their earlier lives. Gross motor skills such as balancing on one leg, running safely on whole foot etc. are examples of these essential skills that can be achieved in Forest Schools: "To move, to run, to find things out by new movement, to feel one's life in every limb - that is the life of early childhood!" (Margaret McMillan as cited in: O'Connor, 2014)  It is therefore invaluable to offer a stimulating Forest School environment that provides risk and challenge in a monitored manner for children to get the most out of them.

                Children can also develop abundant social skills in outdoor environments in accordance with the prime area of Personal, Social and Emotional Development highlighted within the 2012 Development Matters document. Children can reap enormous benefits in speech and language development as a facilitator of social development. Social interaction often entails some form of verbal communication, namely when pre-school children engage in role play activities. This ideology is extended by Constable (2012) in her contemporary book exploring the use of Forest Schools to enrich early years learning in which she stipulates that “opportunities for developing personal social and emotional skills are widespread in the outdoor classroom. There are more challenges, it’s a more risky environment, and there are opportunities for small group tasks, decision making and cooperative work.” (Constable, 2012 p.73) Challenges are constantly being set within the outdoor environment, natural materials are such as planks/blocks of wood, tree stump stepping stones, pebbles, bark etc. all provide children with their own challenges in accordance with their age and stage of development. An important benefit of this is that it can be continually adapted to facilitate children's growing skill and stimulate any child to explore their boundaries, simultaneously boosting their confidence as they realise they are capable of new skills. This also leads on to the importance of practitioners assessing risk on a continual basis as a result of the fluctuating levels of risk caused by these variables.

         Communication and language: Noam Chomsky introduced the concept of transformational grammar. This concept comprises of four kinds of linguistic knowledge; phonology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics. Pragmatics can be explained as the knowledge of what kinds of responses are appropriate in social situations. Children in the pre-school age range can develop their understanding of pragmatics through conversing with one another in imaginative creative ways, including role play. As the stimulating environment of a Forest School lends itself to role-play and imaginative play this conversation between children is likely to occur leading to the correlating benefits.

          Numeracy: There are a number of opportunities for children to develop their skills of numeracy in outdoor areas. Children are able to use real life concepts to support counting such as stepping stones, tyres, logs, pebbles, etc., look for shapes in the outdoor environment and explore shape space and measure concepts such as positional language and symmetry in the natural world. (Constable, 2012)

       Literacy: In the outdoor environment at the setting, there is a chalk board and chalks within the sheltered wooden play area. This encourages the beginnings of letter formation for those pre-school who have acquired such skills. While younger children and babies can develop fine motor skills and hand eye co-ordination to prepare them for the physical skill of writing, Water and paint brushes are also provided outdoors on a regular basis to encourage development of the skills needed to grip writing equipment: - "even the most reluctant writers are keen to have a go when writing opportunities are linked to their interests outside." (Weinstein, 2014, pg. 17)

          Understanding the World: Role play is also often engaged in frequently whilst in outdoor spaces, this may due to the lack of direct provocation in the form of toys which may direct and shape a child's play. Instead they are free to be creative and role-play situations using their own imagination. The outdoors provides the opportunity for children to experience role-play on a larger, noisier and messier than they would be able to indoors. Learning the names and the purposes of wildlife is also the likelihood within Forest Schools which will support children’s understanding of the world and the ideology that plants and trees need certain things to live.

        Expressive arts and Design: "Given the space, children can dance and spin, developing their own creative ways to express their feelings." (O'Connor, 2014) Furthermore, expanding from the previous notion that role-play in the outdoors is a regular occurrence, imagination is intrinsic to role play as children and young people express their thoughts, feelings and emotions through this type of play.  Children are also free to create far more large scale creations outdoors using various natural resources to express themselves which supports endless learning including textural discrimination.

      In conclusion it is evident that Forest School experiences allow children to progress in all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage alongside having fun and making memories for life in a play environment that is unknowingly teaching them foundation life skills. Although some risks may be entailed the benefits outweigh them in the form of confident independent adults that the children grow up to be.

Original post by Georgia