Exploring Holistic Development

Having the opportunity to explore holistic development has been great. It  given me time out of the intense curriculum pushed on teachers by the government to actually start with the child and think of all the variables that affect children's development.

Holistic development is at the centre of Forest School. This allows us to look at the whole learner thinking about their needs on different levels. This includes the acronym SPICES: Social, Physical, Intellectual, Communication, and Spiritual – needs. These are the things we need as human beings in order to live good and meaningful lives. Often if something goes wrong in one area it can impact on the other areas; so an appreciation of the child as a whole is crucial in order for them to become successful learners.

Through taking a holistic approach children have great opportunities to learn about themselves and subsequently develop a healthy self-respect and self-esteem. They also learn about how to develop relationships with people and how they can sustain these so that they are healthy and productive. Research has now shown that having excellent emotional literacy is crucial for intellectual development, social development, aesthetic development and health. The Forest School holistic approach also allows children to overcome difficulties and face new challenges; leading to long term success, this development of resilience is a lifelong essential skill. Alongside these huge benefits for using a holistic approach, children are learning to see natural beauty, have awe, experiencing transcendence and appreciating those timeless ‘truths’  about natural parts of life. This can only result in the world becoming a place of appreciation and benefit others for years to come.

During my Forest School programmes I have really thought about the big picture and each individual child. I take into consideration any outside problems children may be experiencing and ensured that we use these as a guide for sessions and that I have monitored identified children. I am aware that if something goes wrong in one area it can impact on other areas.

Holistic development is facilitated through Forest School through being constantly aware of SPICES. By ensuring that we plan and facilitate activities or questioning to incorporate these we can be confident that we are looking at the needs of the whole child. By using the Leuven Scale, mentioned in a previous post, we can assess where children are and ensure that we are adapting to their needs. Using the school’s Personal Capabilities curriculum and developing life-long learning skills of reflection, self-management, creative thinking, effective participation, independent enquiry and team work, children will be developing as a whole child. Through learning practical skills and using our natural world the children are provided with meaning for their learning and can see where it fits in with the big picture of life.

Self-esteem is promoted through Forest School by its very nature of it not being a traditionally taught academic subject. This is assessed by the practitioner through using a well-being assessment scale, such as the Leuven Scale that assesses the whole child. Other ways in which Forest School promotes self-esteem include aspects including: it is taught outside of the usual constraints of a formal classroom; there are no wrongs or rights in creativity, with no tests or obvious assessments to be judged on; it is perceived as (and is) fun where learning is creative and through play; children have new and exciting experiences that they would not normally access; there is lots of sharing and there are opportunities to work both individually and as part of a team. There are ongoing opportunities for children to develop Guy Claxon’s ‘4 Rs’: resilience, resourcefulness, reciprocity and reflection, which in turn provide a more confident child with solid self-esteem.

Emotional intelligence is promoted through Forest School by the very nature of its approach of building a Forest School Community. Through learning with real-life situations; working with others; team tasks and learning from each other, children are developing their interpersonal skills. Together with being outside and having both the time and space to connect with their own intrapersonal skills, they have a strong base to develop their emotional intelligence. It also allows the children to become more aware of how the natural environment impacts on them and that it is the starting point for being able to easily coexist in it.

I wish the government could understand the importance of holistic development - investing a little bit will pay great dividends.

Observation Success

Fantastic! One of the emails I fired off yesterday trying to find willing Level 3 practitioners to allow me to observe has been successful.

Yes, tomorrow I'm off to a local primary school in a neighbouring authority - they had their half-term break last week.

Excited and apprehensive all rolled into one.

Exploring the Zone...

Through my role of developing Teaching and Learning in school I have explored a lot of cooperative learning, particularly that of Spencer Kagan. This has its roots in Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).


The key aspects of the theory are based around knowing what the child knows, or can do, which is then used to provide guidance and encouragement from a knowledgable person, to help and boost them with the next small step in their learning, and then eventaully be able to do this step unaided.

It focuses on the need for social interactions to increase thought process and interpret learning. This social interaction of giving the appropriate support at the right moments can really boost learning.

This is perhaps in contrast to the Piaget theory of discovery learning, but there is a time and place for giving these boosts to move children through the ZPD. Within a Forest School setting there will be plenty of opportunities for children to explore and learn through discovery, although there will also be times where a little social interaction from a more knowlegable other. For example, when tying knots or using using a tool - here it would be appropriate to add a little boost so they can then carry on unaided.


It's all about observing and judging a situation. In the role of teacher or practitioner you have to think on your feet and treat each child as an individual and adapt your role accordingly.

Wellbeing and Involvement - Ferre Laevers

During my teacher training I focused on Primary Education and so had not heard of Ferre Laevers before embarking on my Forest School project. Here he is explaining the basic principles of his 'Experimental Education' and the need to practitioners to have indicators as to how well they are doing with the children they are working with.

Laever' theory is based around the principles of whether children learn or not depends on children's well-being and their involvement in the learning that they are doing. He has created scales for both of these aspects to enable practitioners to take a step back to observe indicators of: How are the children feeling (well-being)? and, How engaged are the children in their activities (involvement)?

Looking at this from the perspective of a Forest School where we are taking children into a different learning environment it is crucial that we are aware of each child's well-being. This could be as simple as making sure they are warm enough or making sure they feel confident in what they are doing. Within a Forest School programme children will need to have high well-being in order for them to develop and have memorable and meaningful learning. Having high well-being also allows children to understand and express their own feelings, which as practitioners we need to be aware of to adapt the environment, if the feelings are those of anger, anxiety or sadness - for example.

Leuven Scale for Well-being

Leuven Scale for Involvement

Using the Leuven Scale will allow me, as a practitioner, to constantly evaluate the needs of the children and adapt activities and learning accordingly.

An interesting afternoon of looking at scales and thinking about what I currently do within my teaching.

Piaget's Schema and Forest School

Delving back into learning theories I explored during my teacher training has been a welcome, but slightly scary, experience; it's strange how what I do everyday in the classroom has developed from learning theories of many years ago. and how much of it is second nature in my teaching without thinking about it. I approached this research with slight anxiety knowing the names of educational theorist but honstly not fully remembering what their theories were based around.


Piaget's idea of schema is based around the following:

• Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it.
• Use active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing 'truths'
• Use collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children learn from each other)
• Devise situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child
• Evaluate the level of the child's development, so suitable tasks can be set

 Simply Psychology - Piaget

With this in mind, I can now see the intrinsic links.
Forest School programmes are all about 'Discovery Learning' - the understanding that learning takes place within a forest setting allows the learner to be immersed in a wealth of first hand experiences, where they can safely explore and discover for themselves and develop their knowledge and understanding through doing and actively exploring. Piaget's theory of assimilation and accomodation require an active, rather than a passive, learner. He believed that problem solving skills cannot be taught; they must be discovered.

Having the teacher as a facilitator, and not teaching directly, allows for children to use their curiosity and take risks with their learning; without trying to imitate and copy what a teacher has said. During our initial training week we thought a lot about planning activities for children and thinking about what we wanted them to learn, but we were taught that this was always 'Plan B'. Child centred learning allows the children to lead the way in what interest them and our planning would always be the backup to the children's 'Plan A'. This mirrors the approach we are taking with the Learning Challenge curriculum, where we carry out pre-learning tasks to provide the learners with a voice and guide the teaching.

Alongside child-centred, active discovery learning, Piaget also believed in 'Readiness to learn'. He based this around biological maturation and associated stage, believing the notion of 'readiness' to be greatly important. His theory was that a child should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development. Within a Forest School programme this would be used when planning activities with children. Thinking about the use of fires, activities would build on their prior experience and build on that resulting in children of reception age experiencing fires at a different level to that of say year 6 children, who might be ready to safely build and light their own fire. There would be a definite series of learning to ensure children are building on prior learning, experiencing and understanding fully.

My morning's reading and assimilating of Piaget's schemata has definitely deepened my understanding of the theory of Forest School and has built my confidence in preparation of presenting to our PTA, to ask for funding for equipment, as well as to the school governors.

Time...

Being a teacher means time can be a problem, which has meant my Forest School work has been pushed to the side... until now.

My husband and son have thoughtfully given me some much needed time to immerse myself in my research.

Reading back through all my notes has taken me back to the initial week at Birches Valley and everything is flooding back to me. Despite collecting books on trees and knots, and my husband buying me some FS kit for Christmas, I've not managed to explore - before today.

A strange buzz of excitement as I have been reading up of woodland maintenance, (not one to admit to friends) has given me energy and has got me back on track. The research has made me decide to add any links to my blog that I use in my research, as a central reference point and to later share with Becky.

Thinking about gaining extra experience I've emailed three different people to request being able to participate in one of their sessions - again time being an issue I'm planning on using some of half term to squeeze this in.

A successful day. Sparks of a dragon sneeze are visible once more!

Certified

Hurray!
Yes today the postman delivered my certificate to say that I've successfully passed my '16 Hour Forest School First Aid'.

On board...

I eventually plucked up the courage to ask my fantastic teaching assistant if she would be up for assistanting with Forest School activities for KS2. I was slightly nervous because despite me loving being outside and learning, I know it's not everyone's cup of tea!

She said, "Yes, I'd love to!"

The team is building nicely for our school now, as Becky has also asked her teaching assistant Michelle to assist in KS1. Team FS.

Filming a walkthrough

One of the next steps is going to be exploring our proposed site and our instructor had recommended carrying out a walk through description of what the site is like. With that in mind, Becky and I set out at lunchtime donned with mu iPad to record our site.

I'm not overly sure what I was expecting but the time of year really hindered us. Everything was looking asleep and damp. We attempted to identify trees we had learned about but looking purely at twigs and trunks made things tricky.

Result: more time needed to get to know trees and also perhaps wait a little while for the trees to begin to grow shoots.

Tree Classification with Year 4

Thinking about different creative ways for the children to classify different trees for themselve using spotter sheets and leaves.
We recorded our findings using a clay tile and also looked up the 'fancy' Latin names.

Link to class blog post