AIBU to hate Forest School?

[thetreelooksnice]

That's it. My kids hate it. They get cold and muddy. It was OK when they were younger but now they want to stay in the warm to study!

A warm winter coat is fine for playing for 40mins running in the playground or walking to school. Thats all they need and is of course doable.

It's all the rest you'd need for sitting and pottering in the cold all day - the warn layers and the waterproof dungarees etc.

I'm not taking about edible berries and the whole Bear Grylls thing. My boys did that up to Yr5. I'm talking about "outdoor classrooms", "bringing the outside in" and generally doing stuff outside because we live in the country and it is a "feature" of the school. But it can be distracting and annoying.

When we looked at senior schools, I was interested by the number of comments (when they knew where we came from) regarding boys not being able to sit still inside a classroom. Luckily for them my boys don't have a problem with that but I can imagine some do.

strawberriesaregood I know, I am having a good laugh. Those poor UK people would never survive a New England winter!

And yet, the many state park hiking trails are full of adults and children here all winter, despite the weather being much colder than they ever get in the UK.

I guess we are made of tougher stuff over here.

I don't think it is a middle class thing, personally, I just think it's faddy. And coincidentally I know of a few people in the last few years who have trained as Forest practitioners. Only one of those I'd recommend, and that person is also a Scout leader.

If you're only spending a short time in these 'forest' settings then wellies will do, but longer, and any walking involved and you're better off with waterproof, supportive walking boots. My children rarely use(d) wellies.

Christ. Is nowhere safe from Americans wanging on about how much better they are at weather?

Ah, that's not fair now, Choli

It's the damp in the UK that gets to you rather than the cold, it just seems to seep through your clothing (and you can't wear the proper warm clothing because then you sweat as it's not cold enough for it) and make you chilly. I feel a hell of a lot warmer in -15C in dry air than I do in +5C in damp UK.

choli EFF WHY EYE it's the damp in the UK that's hard to cope with, combined with the windchill. It gets really boring when north Americans go onandonandonandon about how cold/hot it is where they are and aren't those Brits pathetic. Combined with the fact that houses Stateside cost so much less to heat, and that in Britain it's the damp and wind that seeps into everything, no you are not "tougher over there". In fact I knew some people from Siberia who hotfooted it back to Russia after one winter because they couldn't cope with the weather.

So there!

love forest school!

My dc enjoyed nothing more and missed it once it stopped in yr4.
It is a fabulous way to learn and inspire a passion for nature and wildlife at a young age. I am surprised your dc don't enjoy it more, perhaps not to so fun in mid winter...but in the spring, summer and autumn surely there is no place they would rather be.

"I can't think of anything worse than forest school, stupid bloody middle class idea"

I can think of quite a few worse things!

(though some posters on this thread haven't sounded very tough, I'll give you that)

Ok I’m going to be another one with arse splinters.

I am a parent and a teacher and love what first school offers children and think it’s great in primary and can see how it could be beneficial in the first year or two of secondary, but it must be purposeful. 7 years of ‘go explore’ won’t get it done! Challenges, examples and inspiration must be provided.

Also the clothing thing is paramount. I have 2 dds who appear to have a genetic condition like myself where I get cold very easily and find it difficult to retrain heat or warm up again. So having them correctly dressed is important and it’s difficult if it’s not the first lesson of the day you don’t know if they are given the opportunity to dress properly.

We have all worked with ‘warm’ people who don’t seem to feel the cold and say “oh you’ll be alright with just your coat”. It makes me miserable to be cold and my girls have had instances of going blue on days which appear fine. It has caught my eldest school teacher by surprise before and she now allows my daughter extra time to layer up before going out.

I realise I’m rambling now, but basically the same as everything in education, great idea but needs to have purpose and correct resourcing (clothing).

My DS went to a forest school nursery from the age of 2.5 till he started primary school (not every day, just a couple of mornings a week at the beginning, and then we switched to one full day; he was at another regular nursery school the other days).

I always used to be struck when picking him up at the end of the day how energised he seemed - full of stuff to say, physically more confident somehow.

Forest school always feels to me like a product of the current “everything Scandinavian is sooo amazing and much better than the way we do things, so let’s copy them” mindset. Unfortunately this doesn’t take into consideration that the UK is a very different place to Scandinavia, and forest school bears as much resemblance to the Scandinavian relationship with the outdoors as a Wimpy bar does to an actual American diner.

DS1 goes to Forest School with his class (all SEN) and he loves it. The muddier and wetter the better. He gets to wear his outdoor clothes and wellies to go to school, then he gets changed into his uniform after FS.

I've never heard of forest school at secondary age? Our 2 youngest (9 & 11) do it at juniors but eldest in year 9 has never had it!

The teachers get fed up of kids in the wrong clotheses too - you don't need bloody walking boots, wellies and good socks is fine - I used to do one thin one thick socks (so two pairs). In terms of waterproofs etc its fine to just have kagooly type trousers and jacket so long as layers underneath warm.

Our kids are being tied to the indoors far too much particularly at home as the poor precious snowflakes can't be out in "weather" . Being outside means vit D, healthy play, exposure to cold air to kill a few bugs, helping immune systems with a bit of dirt, kids learning its OK to get a bit dirty and have a laugh outside, they get hot drinks (or warm ones at least) they are exposed to creatures and wildlife and know what it is and how to look after things. They understand seasons better, learn to work together on things.

In our school there is a mix of better off and less well off parents. The PTA (or equiv) decided to find waterproofs and wellies for the Forrest Schools and they do have a forest schools class room on the school field (Basically a log cabin) which stores this and other things they may need and where artwork and the like can be displayed. Its also used to get in and out of clothing etc.

My children have grown up with their nature loving father. They spend loads of time outdoors and know a lot about nature and plants.

Forest school bores one of them rigid.

Granted wind and rain are factors, but if you can't keep warm in England you're definitely not wearing adequate clothes.

strawberriesaregood I know, I am having a good laugh. Those poor UK people would never survive a New England winter!....And yet, the many state park hiking trails are full of adults and children here all winter, despite the weather being much colder than they ever get in the UK.....I guess we are made of tougher stuff over here.

OMG! The actual stupidity. Wind and rain are not a factor they are the factor. Our climate is exceedingly damp. (I say our but I'm in SW Ireland which is much worse). It rains almost every day of winter and an awful lot of summer. The air is damp which means that it winter the cold gets in your bones in ways that it just doesn't in far colder but drier climates. I have family from Sweden who are just constantly cold when they come here.

Our worst weather can be extremely dangerous. The ground is sodden, for the last few years even in summer the ground has been too wet to dry out. The wind isn't constant but there are regular windstorms where trees, fences and walls fall down because the combination of strong wind and foundations/roots in wet ground make them topple over. And our worst weather isn't the newsworthy extreme events like Hurricane Ophelia. It's the more normal ABC storms that we have 10-12 of every winter like Brian, Dylan and Georgina, each of which destroyed part of my fencing this year. And Barney, which did a number on my trampoline in 2015.

You don't have to be made of hardy stuff to go out walking in the type of weather that fells trees and sends 13ft trampolines on two mile jaunts. You have to be a fucking idiot.

Again, my kid goes to an actual forest school twice a week. Something which I go to quite a bit of effort to ensure happens. I also take him on forest meet-ups/river walks an average of once a week. We also go camping regularly, grow lots of our own food and spend vast amounts of time outside. Proper outdoor clothing certainly makes a huge difference to whether or not that's doable and comfortable.

But anyone who thinks we have the kind of climate that can be compensated for entirely by proper clothing is utterly clueless about conditions on a north Atlantic Island at the tail end of the Gulf Stream. They are also dangerous idiots as we get actual warnings at times to tell us to stay indoors lest we put our lives and the lives of emergency service workers at risk.

My Canadian great aunt was utterly beaten by 2 autumn nights in South Wales in the 1970s and left vowing never to return.

BluthsFrozenBananas That is an important point. The culture, the terrain, the weather, are different.

When I was (travelling in my youth) in Australia, I did a bush course. It was great fun. Never used any of the skills since.

We had a mandatory 'outdoor' day when I was at school so probably the equivalent on a lesser scale, and I loved it(!!!) until an awful experience of having just started my period, in pain, bleeding heavily (or what felt heavily at the time) and being around absolutely no toilets, just walking around uncomfortable fearing going behind a tree in case someone saw or it was a blood bath!

Traumatising