 |
Affiliated
to |
|
Forest Schools 3
|
|
|
To
quote the Chief medical officer for England Sir Liam Donaldson, who said that
the issue is a time bomb. And that ‘doing nothing is not an option’,
therefore in response to this impending urgency, forest school education aims to
enable the community to explore and understand the involvement between public
health issues our environment and its elemental effects within our lifestyles,
to build knowledge, strengthen understanding, and support existing initiatives
that contribute to the achievement of sustainable development within our
communities and our global community. Through
hunting for initiatives already implanted, I met Stuart Barnes-Watson, who
bought a 35-acre woodland in East Buckland, Devon.
He built a Forest School establishment, that invites schools, including,
those focusing on behavioural disturbances, children with HIV and other special
needs groups, to spend days or weekends engaging in various activities. From
a school perspective, the study of forests within a woodland environment,
immediately opens students up, to the desire to share their thoughts and skills,
which encourages students to relate to each other in positive ways, motivating
the development of sharing attitudes, self-growth and understanding of team and
community relations, providing an exciting opportunity for learning via
experience. Students
spontaneously ‘question’ the nature surrounding them, thereby develop an
understanding of ecosystems at their own pace; they increase their capacity of
learning through interest, resulting in self-confidence and well being through
being engaged in positive awareness.
Activities promote stamina and focused determination to carry out tasks,
for example craft skills such as copicing and building yurts, exercise which has
huge health benefits, fundamental to improving and re-fining physical and mental
fitness and well-being. |
|
