Forest School Leaders Course

Over the last couple of months, I've been working towards getting  my OCN Level 3 Forest School Leader qualification. The sessions have either been at Lawrence Weston City Farm in Bristol or at 'The Retreat' near Bitton (which is between Bristol and Bath) and the course was mainly taught by Jon Attwood from the Forest of Avon Trust.

Forest School is an educational system which is becoming more popular in recent years. It draws some ideas from other teaching systems such as Montessori, Waldorf Steiner and Sloyd and is about giving young people a chance to interact with and learn about the natural environment.

This also includes using tools and lighting fires, which many conventional schools can have difficulty in doing because of insurance worries, lack of facilities etc. The element of carefully controlled risk is important to Forest School as it allows young people to learn how to deal with risk in a sensible way.

My teaching work often involves using sharp tools and being outdoors and so it was great to be given the chance to learn more, not only from Jon but also from the other people on the course. One highlight was Asafo teaching everyone how to do gumboot dancing around the fire.

We also took campfire cooking to levels that I've never seen before! Grilled caramelised pineapple slices anyone?