Forest School Outdoor Learning

We have outdoor learning provision 2 days a week at St Levan, so throughout the school year, all children get to experience the amazing learning opportunities that outdoor learning has to offer. Children will take part in small group sessions of up to 10 children in a group, so that they experience a rich ‘hand’s on’ learning experience. 

Our outdoor learning is a child-centred inspirational learning process, that offers opportunities for holistic growth through regular sessions.  It is a long-term programme that supports play, exploration and supported risk-taking.  It develops confidence and self esteem through learner inspired, hand’s on experiences in a natural setting.

Our outdoor learning has a developmental ethos shared by thousands of trained practitioners around the world, who are constantly developing their learning styles and skills to support new and imaginative learners.  Its roots reach back to the open-air culture, or free air life, as seen as a way of life in Scandinavia where the term ‘forest school’ began.  It arrived in the UK in 1993 and has grown from strength to strength since then. 

The process helps and facilitates more than knowledge gathering, it helps learners develop socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually.  It creates a safe, non-judgemental nurturing environment for learners to ‘try stuff’ out and take risks.  Our provision inspires a deep and meaningful connection to the world and an understanding of how a learner fits within it.  Our approach to risk means that learners constantly expand on their abilities by solving real-world issues, building self-belief and resilience.  We believe that risk is more than just potential for physical harm, but a more holistic thing, there are risks in everything we do, and we grow by overcoming them.  Our outdoor learning therefore, helps participants to become healthy, resilient, creative and independent learners.