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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to hate Forest School?

403 replies

thetreelooksnice · 01/02/2018 18:08

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!

OP posts:
Rinoachicken · 01/02/2018 22:04

SimultaneousEquation and yet how much better for all our mental wellbeing would it be if that were actually an option every now and again

Layla8 · 01/02/2018 22:12

I would have hated it. Not all kids love being outdoors, they shouldn’t be forced to do it. I always loved curling up with a good book. In the warm.

crunchermuncher · 01/02/2018 22:12

OP what do your kids do in forest school? It sounds like you're saying they just make them do normal lessons sitting outside , which sounds bonkers! I love the idea of forest school , getting outside and learning about the outdoors . But i can't see a benefit to freezing your arse off while doing normal book learning. Sounds like the worst of both worlds?

MaisyPops · 01/02/2018 22:14

I love it. You don't need full outdoor specialist kit. Just soem warm clothes.

Not sure how it's any difference to us going to a nearby river, visiting the Lake District for a residential or going to the beach for our school trips, just it's closer. Old wamer clothes, sensible shoes and a coat was fine .

I also agree with PP that some on MN live in a zoflora world where children need ferrying to organised activities and can't walk 15 mins to school anymore.

namastayinbed · 01/02/2018 22:16

Ds hated it at preschool.

DixieNormas · 01/02/2018 22:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

crunchermuncher · 01/02/2018 22:16

Layla I hated maths, does that mean I shouldn't have had to do it?
I got over it and now work with spreadsheets but if someone had given me the choice aged 11 I'd have probably given it a miss, and missed a valuable part of my education.

FanDabbyFloozy · 01/02/2018 22:18

Over 8 and I think it's just a bit forced..

elektrawoman · 01/02/2018 22:19

thetreelooksnice yes I have read all your posts, in fact I have RTFT but I was responding to other posts not only yours. But as you’ve obviously already decided Forest School is a waste of time I don’t know why you bothered posting in AIBU. Glad your kids have a lovely big garden and more important things to do at school than waste their time outside. In the school I worked with, many children lived in flats with no garden, some had disabled parents or from other cultures so rarely travelled anywhere or spent most of their spare time indoors playing computer games and rarely had the opportunity to do this kind of thing so it was a valuable experience. Probably not issues that your school would have, but in my school it was fantastic.
Now off to do something more useful with my time than faff about on AIBU.

Charolais · 01/02/2018 22:29

I suppose someone has to take these children outdoors and show them nature because their lazy parents won’t do it.

I loved the outdoors/nature/trees as a child and still do. Someone I know on the other hand hated anything outdoors and never took her children outside. She bought them lots of toys which they played with in their bedrooms. When her son was 12 he was well into girls and spent most of the day with his arms wrapped around girls. He started getting them pregnant when he was 16.

When he was 12 I suggested he gets a healthy outdoor interest such as fishing she shouted ‘WHY THE HELL WOULD HE WANT TO SIT AND STARE AT WATER ALL DAY”?

For awhile in his early 20’s he ended up staring at prison bars.

Original poster
thetreelooksnice · 01/02/2018 22:35

Hahahahahaha! Took a long time before the prison post came along.

Sits waiting for the Hitler reference now...

OP posts:
MelanieSmooter · 01/02/2018 22:36

She bought them lots of toys which they played with in their bedrooms. For awhile in his early 20’s he ended up staring at prison bars

I’m sure those toys really damaged him. If only he’d been fishing, it would definitely have prevented crime in adulthood. Hmm

I love Forest School and it does my DSs with ASD the world of good. Today at work I had 12 year old boys refusing to do their cross country run because ‘it’s muddy.’ 🙄 Perhaps if they were used to it and didn’t have the perception that mud = bad from a young age, they would have been more engaged!

hazeyjane · 01/02/2018 22:38

Charolais that is, without doubt, one of the finest posts I have ever read on mumsnet.

Lovely stuff.

hazeyjane · 01/02/2018 22:40

I dont know about Hitler, thetreelooksnice, but I understand Mussolini hated going outside, and preferred staying in and watching Pebble Mill at One. Which just goes to show, eh.

ReanimatedSGB · 01/02/2018 22:44

But I do think it gets a bit pointless once they are at secondary age. Particularly if it's badly taught, with limited outdoor facilities. Once kids get to 12 or so, forcing them to plod around in the freezing rain when they hate the idea is stupid. They have to do PE as it is. It's OK not to be very outdoors-minded, after all.

Mind you, as a kid and an adult, a bit of woodland walking strikes me as infinitely preferable to sport of any kind. The most miserable and pointless lessons of all my school years were the sport ones. Standing around being cold and bored while someone randomly hurled a ball somewhere. And fuck off with all that crap about team spirit. Why on earth should I care which group of people hurl a ball in one direction more often than another group?

Bingowingslikeashieldofsteel · 01/02/2018 22:48

FanDabbyFloozy - as I mentioned earlier I'd completely disagree. There's no better sight than seeing teenagers paddling in stream for the first time in their lives, or lighting their own fires to cook lunch. Give me the most challenging kids you can imagine and I'll guarantee they'll find something they can succeed in. Conversely give me a socially anxious student who needs strategies to make friends and we can start to work on that too.

Forest schools might not always help kids pass academic/entrance exams but learning to light a fire teaches them to keep trying and learn that it's ok to fail sometimes. Resilience is sadly missing in a lot of our youth...

And that's one small example of forest schools...

Bingowingslikeashieldofsteel · 01/02/2018 22:53

Reanimated - sorry we cross posted, the sessions I've observed they don't plod around in the rain at all, far from it. They're playing games, shelter building, lighting fires, crossing a river (stream!), using tools, clearing paths etc etc

Any session where students are plodding around is rubbish - or you're not getting the full picture of what is happening!

FanDabbyFloozy · 01/02/2018 22:54

@Bingowingslikeashieldofsteel - my kids are only a bit older than 8 and don't need to paddle in streams at school! They can navigate ski resorts alone, trek with us across fields and fields, swim, do water sports.. They are not sporty kids but are certainly resilient.

They'd hate to be forced to do these things as part of school though. They do them because they want to..

gert1e · 01/02/2018 22:56

I think generally speaking, children these days spend less time outdoors playing, nothing to do with demographics. Lots of children spend far too much time in front of a screen, surely getting outdoors and learning new skills that they may not get chance to develop is a positive thing
I disagree. In our area you'd be preaching to the converted about the outdoors and 'getting the kids outside'

jugotmail · 01/02/2018 22:57

Proper Forest School is taught by a qualified practitioner - for my qualification i spent one week in the woods before completing and submitting a portfolio of work including evidence of ecological and woodland knowledge, learning theory, planning and assessment of activities as well as behaviour and development assessment. It took me a year whilst working part time and volunteering in a Forest School - another trainee said that it was more work than her dissertation . The practitioner should also hold an outdoor first aid certificate. My qualification and work is certainly not a fad and is certainly not easy. Admittedly older children are trickier to engage ime and are too busy worrying about what everyone else thinks but that is why they need experiences like this.

gert1e · 01/02/2018 22:58

There's no better sight than seeing teenagers paddling in stream for the first time in their lives
Is it really Shock

There is a lesson in there for sure, Charolais Grin

Footle · 01/02/2018 22:58

Nobody here heard of Forest School Camps?

Greensleeves · 01/02/2018 22:59

If they could have made it an option INSTEAD of PE, I would have been ecstatic. No more stink of rubber floors and sweaty trainers and freezing corned-beef legs. Shudder.

gert1e · 01/02/2018 22:59

It's not very difficult to qualify, jugot.

Bingowingslikeashieldofsteel · 01/02/2018 23:03

@FanDabbyFloozy Its great that you give your kids the opportunity, lots don't get that. Mine always got to count and practice spellings at home but I never berated school for insisting they have curriculum time devoted to it too.

There's a lot to be gained by shared experiences with peers - turn taking, team working, communication skills to name a few. Schools can't win really can they?

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