Forest School Experience

All pupils visit Forest School at Itchen Valley Country Park during Year 7. Further opportunities are sometimes offered to older pupils during their time at the Polygon.

Forest School is an inspirational process that offers ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a woodland or natural environment with trees.

Forest School is a specialised learning approach that sits within and compliments the wider context of outdoor and woodland education.

‘I don’t have ADHD when I`m out in the woods.’  David, aged 14

At Forest School all participants are viewed as:

• equal, unique, and valuable

• competent to explore & discover

• entitled to experience appropriate risk and challenge

• entitled to choose, and to initiate and drive their own learning and development

• entitled to experience regular success

• entitled to develop positive relationships with themselves and other people

• entitled to develop a strong, positive relationship with their natural world

   

  The learner-centred approach interweaves with the ever-changing moods, marvels, and challenges of the natural world through the seasons to fill every Forest School session and programme with discovery and difference.