Evaluating research carried out in relation to Forest School

So in theory Forest School sounds ideal for developing the children of today to become all round great learners – but where is the evidence?

There have been numerous studies that have taken place around the benefits of Forest School; here are summaries of two of them.

A Critical review of research and literature exploring the relationship of the child with the natural world – Rowena Kenny 2010

·         growing dissociation of children from the natural environment ·         tension between biological drives and the socio-political contexts of modern culture ·         Nature Deficit Disorder ·         renaturing of childhood Kenny’s research is to explore why there is a need for Forest School. She goes back to research humans’ inherent biological need for nature – including our need for a connection with our environment. Western society has progressed to an extent that children don’t have the opportunities to develop this relationship, in the way that they did historically, and will subsequently not be able to see the need to preserve the natural world as they don’t have that connection. Alongside this, she discussed the need for children to be re-naturalised and hypothesized that common childhood issues including obesity and ADD/ADHD could be due to NDD – Nature Deficiency Disorder.

The benefits of a forest school experience for children in their early years – Sam Massey for NFER 2005

This study was to get an all-round view of the forest school experience and what they were gaining from it. It was also to ascertain if forest school provides skills and confidence for a child’s lifelong learning and to gain an insight into the types of learning experiences being offered and the relation to the EYFS. The study was thorough and used a variety of methods for the research including interviews, questionnaire and videos of the children during a Forest School session. The resulting findings from the research highlighted that forest school programmes: evolve from the needs of the child and includes the child’s interests; develop good self-esteem in a climate of small achievable steps; provides a real context for developing language; provides the practitioner with an alternative view of the child and further insights into a child’s particular development; are beneficial to a child’s all-round development, particularly in the areas of personal, social and emotional development, and language and communication; underpin the principles laid down in the foundation stage guidelines; have been very well received by all those involved in it; provides opportunities for the children to take risks, solve problems and employ thinking skills; complements learning in the classroom and can be transferred. It was an interesting insight also into parents’ reactions to seeing their children in a Forest School session where they, “expressed their wonder at the level of independence and confidence.” Overall this was a positive piece of research backing up the benefits of the whole ethos of Forest School.