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What is a Forest School?

Forest school describes an educational approach based on traditional Indigenous and Scandinavian pedagogy. It takes place in any natural space where children spend most of their time outside.

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Key Aspects of Forest School

Forest schools may have many different formats but they all provide two things:

  • Regular and repeated access to the same natural space

  • Emergent, experiential, inquiry-based, play-based, and place-based learning (MacEchren, 2013)

Benefits of Forest School

Outdoors, children move more and play longer - behaviours that are associated with improved mental and physical health. Being outdoors provides rich opportunities for play that can facilitate interpersonal skills, resilience, self-regulation, fine and gross motor skills, literacy and numeracy.

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