Thinking about the impact of a learner’s positive behaviour
on their own learning and development within Forest School brings me to the
wealth of experiences they can build on and take with them throughout life. If
they have positive behaviour they will: fully engage with the whole process;
learn new knowledge about their natural world local environment, which they can
then build on and explore further; develop new skills of working with and in
nature, for example making shelters out of natural materials and tent pegs
through whittling a piece of wood; develop survival skills; develop observation
skills – not just seeing trees but being able to identify them by their twigs,
bark, shape, leaf, fruit and flower; develop listening skills and thinking
about the impact of humans and noise pollution; develop an understanding of
looking after the natural world and how they can play a part for future
generations, and take calculated risks by having a go at things they never
considered they would be able to do before. All in all positive behaviour can
have a huge impact on their current and future learning and development not
just within Forest School but throughout life.
In comparison if a learner shows negative behaviour due to a
multitude of variables both within and outside of school this can really create
barriers to their learning and development. Negative behaviour can create a
barrier to their learning. It’s important to try to discover reasons why they
could be displaying the negative behaviour, which can be done through starting
at the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The learner may be showing
negative behaviour because they are out of their comfort zone and have a fear
of the unknown and it is important to ensure that they feel safe within the
Forest School environment. Negative behaviour can impact through them being
defensive about what they are doing; not opening up to new ideas; distrusting
the leader or not feeling safe to take risks. All of these will mean that the
learner will either stand-still or move backwards in their learning and
development. For the learner to see that others are all advancing and engaging
around them will then make them feel even more insecure about their own
learning. They might start to feel incredibly isolated from the group which
could subsequently turn into frustration and anger. In subsequent session the
learner could then arrive with a negative mindset and not even attempt to move
on – this could also impact on their learning and development in other areas of
life.
If a learner shows positive behaviour it can not only have a
beneficial impact on themselves, but also on the whole group. This would be
observable through fantastic teamwork skills where there is collaboration and
cooperation between learners. It could also be observed in the way they were
learning from each other, for example peer learning where one child is
assisting another with the correct way to tie a particular knot. These are
examples of the learners building a cohesive group together and supporting each
other to learn more. Sharing discoveries and skills provides mutual support and
self-worth and builds stronger teams and friendships. It allows learners to
develop new friendships and also to see people differently which can
consequently positively impact across their whole school and social life.
In contrast, if a learner demonstrated negative behaviour it
could have a detrimental impact on the whole group. Negative behaviour, even by
just one learner, can completely upset the dynamics of the group, the flow of
activities and the trust of the group. If they begin to dominate then they can
prevent others from learning and developing, by distracting others, unnerving
others and taking the group leader’s time from the rest of the group. Although
during a couple of my pilot sessions I had one such learner and surprisingly
the remainder of the group carried on with their exploring and activities and
appeared to ignore this particular learner.
It is crucial that we use emotional intelligence and
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to provide for all learners to get the most out of
each session and therefore diminish any negative behaviour.
Encouraging positive behaviours
Being a teacher I use a range of strategies of encouraging
appropriate behaviour for in the classroom but I had to rethink slightly in
order to transfer these to Forest School. In order to evaluate I will look at
both behaviour management and how to encourage Forest School behaviour.
A massive part of Forest School is allowing and ensuring it
is pupil led. This demonstrates my trust in the learners and engages them,
because it is what they want to do. This then creates two-way respect which
should encourage positive behaviour. This is built on trust and relies on the
learners appreciating that they are being trusted too so I personally believe
this will be more effective the older the learner due to this.
As a practitioner I ensure that I model behaviour that is
appropriate to Forest School. This could be through the way I walk through the
woods to respect it, to the way I include all ideas. This is behaviour I would
always use in the classroom, or indeed life, but it is not enough alone when
thinking about all behaviour not just positive behaviour. During one of my
Forest School sessions, I presume I had not explained clearly enough because
the learners were looking a little lost. At this point I had a go at making
something myself and experimented with different things and it was almost as if
I was giving permission to explore as within 2-3 minutes lots of the group had
followed suit, so I guess modelling behaviour did work in this instance.
Another appropriate behaviour for Forest School is that of
independence, which is embedded in all our learning at school through Personal,
Learning and Thinking Skills and so something the learning I am working with
are used to. I have encourage this through providing very loose guidelines as
to what we are doing to enable them to be creative, think about who they would
like to work with, pick themselves up when something does not go quite to plan.
Initially the group I worked with struggled with this almost free rein but
through repetition and opportunities for them to share, reflect and feedback on
their learning they soon got into the mindset that they were free to explore
and there wasn’t a right or wrong. Although, at the time of writing I have not
used any tools with the learners where obviously they will have to follow
instructions for correct use rather than wield them in whatever way they
choose!
By sharing and agreeing mutual guidelines for behaviour with
the learners it allows everyone to feel secure about expectations. It allows for:
mutual agreement, rather than being told; being upfront, so no surprises;
sharing the rationale for the agreed behaviour and handing over ownership to
the learners. Again this is something that can be done at different levels for
learners – working in LKS2 meant that the children were mature enough to
understand why the guidelines were needed. This approach may not be as
effective with EYFS or learners with SEND.
Rewarding positive behaviour and attitude towards Forest
School is an option to get learners to repeat this positive behaviour. This can
be down through leading the line out at the end of a session; carrying the
happy sack or helping with the roly-poly water carrier. This is useful but also
very difficult for it to be consistently fair as in the forest you cannot see
each learner and the progress they are making all the time.
By creating opportunities for learners to talk about what
they are doing or issues and feelings through reflection time or check-in /
check-out time is a good opportunity to reinforce expected behaviour in an open
forum. By having this built into Forest School sessions it takes the pressure
off it being about a particular incident that has happened.
Through ensuring that tasks are ‘small and achievable’ which
do not set learners up to fail but still challenge them, learners can build
their confidence by having small successes and enable them to want to
participate and develop their own self-belief that they can do it. This is a
useful strategy but learners can often put pressure on themselves and either overcomplicates
tasks or worry about taking risks and not try, in case it is not perfect.
