Forest School Nursery - all day outside

[ChillysWaterBottle]

Hi, has anyone got experience of sending their child to a forest school nursery, where it is 90% held outside all weathers, age 2+? Was it a wholesome and healthy and happy experience, or a disaster?

Following as I am considering this as well. I have a friend who sent her DS 3 days a week and now plans to send her DD. She raves about it.

We've been sending our nearly-3-year-old daughter to a fully outdoor forest nursery since last August. With the right clothes and lots of layers, as well as an amazing setting and staff, it has been a fantastic experience thus far! I imagine it may not suit every child, but we are very happy and have already registered our second child to go when he turns 2.

I sent my son to an all outdoor forest nursery from age 2 until school and now my daughter goes as well. They both absolutely love it. They are so physically active and have developed a real love of being outdoors. Parents are often invited to random forest walks and things and it all seems incredibly well managed. They also seem to get sick far less than my friends' nursery age children. The nursery are quite strict with clothing, so although they're outside all day they are wrapped up incredibly warm!

Mine used to do one or two full forest school days a week.

Absolutely loved it, used to cook their meals on the camp fire. Learnt all sorts of skills. Rarely had colds too. Wish they could go back to it 😅

Sounds bonkers to me. One of my DC did attend an educational nursery (not UK at the time) where the classrooms backed on to a large garden area and they were allowed out an awful lot as individuals, not enforced on the group as a whole.
Surely there must be some happy medium between 90% classroom v 905 forest? I bet the Ofsted inspections are interesting for forest Schools lol.

All friends who’ve been lucky enough to be able
to use settings like these have been nothing but positive, wish we had one near enough by to be practical.

My child's nursery got outstanding as a forest school and said that children are the heart of the setting. Ofsted often look for the learning taking place, which is everywhere in a forest school.

We had the best of both, nursery building on a rural farm. Kids did forestry and foraging, reared chickens and had their own veg patches. They also spent time indoors following curriculum.

They sold the eggs and the kids made jams/chutneys with their harvest to sell too. The kids voted on how to spend the money.

@maskfree how does it sound bonkers? Why don’t you research something before labelling it as bonkers?

children learn best from DOING not sitting a desk/inside breathing in germs all day. Simply being outside and in nature is therapeutic for adults aswell as children and they actually learn life skills rather than being thrown a load of numbers and spellings at them

it isn’t enforced. I think people know what they’re signing up for when they attend a forest school. You can’t exactly have a forest school inside a classroom 😂 so I’d raise my eyebrows at somebody who didn’t expect a forest school to be exclusively outside!

Ofsted are big fans of forest school because it promotes wellbeing and is child-centred.

OP, forest schools are amazing. Go for it! Dress little one according to the weather, have wellies, hats, spare clothes in bag.

in Scandinavia they even put babies in prams outside to sleep unless below -25C, also same at school, having correc toutdoor clothes is essential though.
young children do not need to be sat at tables, you can have stories do art write letters in sand, etc etc all outside; there are leaves to count shapes and colours to recognise I think teaching children young to deal with fire and knives is great,

I really want to do this, so healthy for physical and mental well-being and bet kids sleep well

Am also interested in this, as have heard lots of positives.. but also wonder if there is a bias as the sort of people sending their child to forest school are very outdoorsy.

I wonder how things like going to the potty/ toilet work with the children being so layered up. Are there indoor toilets with proper sinks?

I also worry about environmental contaminants in the settings - is there a process to check for and monitor these when setting up a forest school? For example, I see lots of pictures from local forest schools of children playing in a stream and I worry about pollution from.agricultural run off and industry, especially since Brexit as we have lost many of the strict EU laws around this.

I think it sounds lovely but then I always think about those days in winter when they’ve got a little bit of a cold and they just want to curl up on a bean bag with a book- idk if I’d appreciate being outdoors then!

Yes 2x kids age 2.5 to 4. It was brilliant but they only went once a week. There's a lot of prep and they get v tired so more days would have been hard work I think

There was more of a camp toilet at ours. Though in winter they went to a cafe for lunch

They have one base toilet and sink indoors but also me a pop up tent and travel potty and a portable sink when they go for walks. They also do 'nature wees' as they get older too 😂

They make hot chocolate round the camp fire which always goes down well with the kids