More musing on behaviour

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.