AIBU to consider an outdoor primary over our local school?

everyone I know who has used a forest nursery has been delighted with it, so I wouldn’t write off a forest school for a child who is thriving at a forest nursery.

A setting that suits a 2/3 year old is very different to something that will help a 10 year old be ready for when they move to secondary school though.

It's so important to remember that the tiny 4 year old you send to school will very quickly become that 10 year old.

She;'s not talking about nursery.

She's talking about primary school.

Our daughter went to a 100% outdoor nursery and absolutely thrived. You just need the appropriate clothing for winter - merino base layers, proper technical waterproofs. It had covered areas and a sheltered classroom with a log burner that was toasty too.

We faced the same choice as you and picked a pre prep with 300 acres of outdoor space, wild classrooms and woodlands. There is still indoor learning but I’d say it’s about 50/50.

The school moves to a more traditional based learning for prep but they are still outside a lot.

i’d visit and see what it was like. There’s some extreme reactions on this thread but everyone I know who has used a forest nursery has been delighted with it, so I wouldn’t write off a forest school for a child who is thriving at a forest nursery. It’s likely they have shelter for horrible days, not necessarily a building but some form of covered area, they will have a campfire, etc. We have a few outdoor nurseries around here in the north of Scotland that run in all weathers.

Adding: one concern on this thread that feels true to me based on our experience is it IS hard to go to school away from your immediate local area. You do miss out on friends round the corner. But for us the benefits of being outside, lots of play, small class sizes, etc, massively outweigh this.

I would also add if you child has major SEN needs not all small private schools have the resources to support adequately. Some kids in these circumstances are probably better off at a large, well off private or in mainstream.

I’m not sure how they work but I know I side as hell wouldn’t want to work in one or to have gone to one and neither would my dc. We are an outdoorsy family but even still being out in the cold, wind and rain for long periods of time isn’t fun regardless of what clothes you are wearing. On days like that we are in and out doing the horses as quickly as possible and back inside to get cozy

100 percent I would do it if it feels like the best fit. Kids should play and be outside when they are little anyway, imo. We made a similar decision for our kids, picking a small, private alternative school where they don't learn anything formally (in the "sitting down at a desk" sense) until they are 6/7. My eldest is 9 now, all caught up and honestly were indistinguishable in skills from friends with more conventional educational backgrounds. We never assumed our kids would stay there forever, we just made the next decision - "is this a good place for this year?" No regrets. Childhood is short and it's about so much more than learning to read and write (although it turns out you can do that too!).

😂 some of the answers to this are crazy. There's going to be different opinions on curriculum and how it will prepare them for high school but talking about children freezing and branches falling on them? How do people think fully outdoor nurseries work and there's lots of them, even up here in Scotland!

I guess my thought would be - is this setting my child up for the future.
Outside all day every day - great in some job situations - works well for some children.
In an office environment and therefore working with and around others - more likely so a standard school set up would likely build toward that experience..
This is just my opinion.

You'd need to ask them that.

It sounds a bit nutty OP, sorry. It rained every day for over 50 days straight at the start of this year. I can’t imagine wanting my DC to sit out in that all day. How do they write and read books in the rain? I think the outdoors is great but it should be a sort of hybrid so not outside all day in all weathers. I’m an adult and wouldn’t want to sit outside in the rain, I mean it isn’t even practical- my books and laptop would get wet or even blow away! Don’t forget we also have storms with 70mph winds in the U.K. and falling trees.

Have you been to look at either school yet for yourself or just basing it on what you have read?
A lot of primary schools do focus on outdoor provision and have forest school days set each week.
Also just because the local primary can have 60 children doesn't mean they will fulfil that (falling birth rate means some schools are struggling to recruit).

If you are in a position to pay for private education are there any other options? Especially if your focus is on the small class sizes.
Additionally you say schools are struggling for support e.g. sen, but how does this fit into the forest school? Do they not take children with Sen or do you believe they will facilitate Sen children better (staffing for instance).

How is that different from the thousands of primary schools up and down the country that have regular forest school time built into the timetable?
Or the thousands of EYFS classes who often have free flow from indoor to outdoor through the whole day so if children want to spend lots of time outdoors they are free to? That's pretty standard in mainstream reception classes.

Could you effectively learn to read, write, multiply and divide in the pissing rain and freezing cold? Of course not.

Its probably suitable for children struggling with propper educational settings who attend part tine, as a "something is better than nothing" setting - but to put a non-SEN child in here, simply because he liked it during nursery is a bad idea IMO.

I agree with others- cute abdcfun at 4, wrong decision for a 9/10/11 year old. Miserable in certain weather- novelty eill wear off quickly, small cohort, cant walk to school, have local friends. My ds is 10 & dd 12, they love having friends nearby and ability to get to & from school independently. Also I doubt the academic outcomes at year 6 would be comparable to a state primary.

What does the outdoor school offer in terms of sports, music, drama, leadership opportunities, public speaking, practical science, bringing outside speakers in etc?

What kind of trips to they offer?

How does toileting work?

How do they deliver the curriculum? Do they just not do parts of it like the IT bits etc?

Yes I agree with others, this is one thing and I would imagine it could be great.

@Welcomehat says tho that the school they are considering is fully outdoors.

ETA I see @usedtobeaylis has posted again to say that the school they reffed appears to be fully outdoors but is not.

Like others here, I wonder how a fully outdoor school would work in practice. Are the loos outdoors too? What about reading and writing in the pouring rain – which we had lots of earlier this year? Yes today is gorgeous but tomorrow may not be.

And I know about no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes; but I cannot imagine a library lesson with year 5s outside in the rain tbh.

Intrigued by this, I as others have, searched, out of interest rather than to locate the OP. I only found very few schools which say they are outdoors and one of those is closing this summer. The one @MrsMabelThorpe linked was one I found – and that has images on its website of children indoors on computers.

Tbh @Welcomehat many schools have a forest school element, especially in lower years. I would look for a state school local to you that offered that. Two classes of 30 each is pretty standard and works well as there is the possibility of mixing classes up if there are issues, as well as dividing the year into setted groups for maths for example. My DC went to a school with an intake of 80 and it was fine.

As others say, there is a lot to be said for a good pool of friendship possibilities, local friends and a school you can walk to. Especially a school your 10-11yo can walk to on their own as a first stage of independence.

I do primary supply and was once asked to go to a forest school nursery which was totally outside - it was January and I was so cold I hated it and declined to go ever again. One child was crying and wouldn't eat lunch because her hands were too cold. Everything was on the floor and muddy, including books and dressing up clothes. That is not to say it wasn't a good establishment - it was highly regarded, but not for everyone. Also, none of the children seemed to be full time, so weren't outside all day every day.
All reception children get to go outside quite a bit these days - I've been at schools where it is up to 50 percent of the day - but they have a choice. However, that changes once they are in Year 1.

Our two both attend a forest primary (not in the UK), they start having some indoor lessons when they turn eight to start the slow transition to the secondary school day. Our two really enjoy school, they’re both doing well socially and meeting their individual academic targets.

As the school you are considering is private make sure they have the pupil numbers to sustain it for your childs whole primary experience.

I just looked at this and it looks incredible! I like that they also do for longer days a week so you get a longer family weekend.

If OP means something like this, with a true outdoor ethos and the means to achieve it, and they can afford it, I’d say go for it!

I think this. What an amazing start to have his learning free from screens. I think most would be shocked with how digitalised learning is becoming in schools, the kids literally spend hours on screens some days. Plenty of evidence to show that no formal education before 7 is great for children’s development and wellbeing. By then you’ll have a real sense of how it’s working out, how he’s doing socially etc. I’d try to join clubs local to him so he makes some local pals.

She may be mistaken, people also think this primary is fully outdoors and to be honest it does kind of give that impression in its literature. She may not be mistaken but it would be very unusual because it's not possible to implement the whole curriculum outside - in Scotland anyway, for example digital literacy/creativity and computer science can't be delivered outside.

Agree that a half-way house where there is a school building but the idea is to get them out as much as possible for 50% or 75% of the day is great. But the op says it's "fully outdoors".

The OP seems sure that all learning at the school she is describing is outdoors though. A balance between the two is definitely a better option and what many schools both state and private already work towards.

Btw there is an outdoor primary school near me and it's not the case that they're outside tying to write in the cold and rain. They have indoor teaching blocks. It's just a different ethos, it's not about doing every single thing outside.