Forest Schools

At Pitsford Primary School, we always encourage working outside of the classroom and feel it is the perfect opportunity to work on our school values. We feel it is important to offer all of our learners a chance to access our Forest School provision during the academic year as this allows us to nurture all parts of a child’s character and offers them opportunities to learn without the confines of the classroom walls. 

We use facilities both within the school grounds and also visit Pitsford Water locally for activities with fire, tools, den building and climbing trees. Children have access to a range of tools which they are taught to use competently and safely, whilst learning to risk assess. We love to develop our physical skills through gross motor activities such as tree climbing and den building and our fine motor skills too through tying a range of knots. We collaborate on tasks such as creating our own Goldsworthy Art creations and complete creative activities such as clay work and weaving. We often enjoy toasting marshmallows and making hot chocolate to share with our friends. Learning how to make a fire safely including lighting with the fire steels is a favourite activity and teaches the children how to be safe around fire.

Many of our sessions are inspired by events, questions raised in lessons, stories or challenges set; this enables us to problem solve, explore and investigate within the session.  This leads us to greater opportunities to develop our speaking and listening skills and in turn our speech and language skills.  

We seek to develop a love of the natural world, broaden our experience and knowledge of being outdoors and exploring local flora and fauna. We have a set of skills which children work on throughout their time at Pitsford, offering all children the chance to become comfortable and confident in the natural learning environment that forest school offers, whilst developing our resilience, confidence, self-esteem, social skills and sense of belonging.

‘Don’t just tell your children about the world…show them.’