2023-2024

Summer 1

17th April 2024

Today Inventors had a go at planning and making games using natural materials. We had some familiar games such as a version of noughts and crosses and some interesting inventions with well thought through rules. Some were board games and some were playground games. The children enjoyed sharing what they had come up with.

Spring 2

20th March 2024

We have found quite a few rabbit skulls round our grounds recently. The children were very knowledgeable about Myxomatosis and that this was the cause of the rabbit skeletons we had seen. We talked about how they get like this very quickly due to other animals, birds and insects eating the carcass. We looked at the anatomy of the rabbits and labelled the parts on our diagrams.

6th March 2024

Today we got to use our new benches that have been installed after our fundraising at Christmas. We learned about the Green Man who was originally a pagan symbol but was taken into Christianity to represent nature and tried to create our own version with clay on the trees around our site.

28th January 2024

Today we did some team building work with a technique called Nordic ‘slinging’ (or braiding). The children added weights to the end of lengths of yarn and swung them towards each other in a rhythmic pattern to make a beautiful patterned cord. Unfortunately due to IT maintenance we were unable to take any photographs.

Spring 1

7th February 2024

Today we finally managed to carry out the Big Schools Birdwatch! We spotted some common birds such as pigeons, sparrows, robins and various finches. We saw a wedge of geese go over and we also spotted a bird of prey on the telephone wire which makes a regular appearance while we are at Forest School and we think it is a Kestrel. As we were watching out we also saw lapwings which are on the red conservation list as a threatened species!

24th January 2024

We had intended to carry out the Big Schools Birdwatch today, however 39mph winds meant that it wasn’t really Birding weather. We decided to utilise the time by doing a survey of our grounds using the ‘Homes for Nature Scorecard’ from the RSPB to make sure we had the best things available and what we could add to improve. We found we had most of the things on the list and scored very highly thanks to the work of Miss Stanley and Mrs Abbott. We need to add a beetle bucket to score 100%.

17th January 2024

Today we made bird feeders melting fat on the fire and pouring it into moulds and adding bird seed. We are trying to encourage the birds to come ready for our RSPB big bird count next week.
 

10th January 2024

Today Hetty Hedgehog came to us telling us that her home had been destroyed in the recent storms and asked that the children make her a new one. We had a think about the sort of things she might need in a home. The children told Mrs Powell that Hetty should be hibernating and that she is nocturnal and should not be out during the day. They said that she would need a safe and secure home that was insulated, waterproof and windproof.

We also looked at a skull of a rabbit from a skeleton that year 6 found on the field. The children were fascinated to see what it looked like. 

Autumn 2

1st November 2023

Today Inventors could choose between making an autumn wreath, a bauble or use a wooden spoon to make a character all with found autumnal materials or an autumn scavenger hunt where they had to go around our site and find signs of autumn. They made some really lovely items and had a great time doing it and some children found lots of things on the scavenger list to indicate that autumn has definitely arrived.

Autumn 1

18th October 2023

We made some 5 pointed stars by tying 5 sticks together. The children added their own flare with coloured wool. Some children had a go at making trees in the same way.

11th October 2023

It was a wet drizzly day today. We stayed in the outdoor classroom and had a go at painting conkers, making acorn buddies and conker comets. We then got to race them on the MUGA.

4th October 2023

Inventors made a low ridge line shelter today. We had one piece of paracord, 4 tent pegs and a tarpaulin per group and used all the knots we had learned so far to put it together.

27th September 2023

Inventors had requested that we get out the storm shelter this week as we discussed what it was in the previous session. We talked about what to do in a situation where someone has hypothermia and how the storm shelter would help, then we had a go at using the storm shelter for ourselves. The children said it got warm in the shelter very quickly and how good it would be if someone was extremely cold.

20th September 2023

It was a very windy day today and so  we decided not to risk falling branches and did some research inside for how we can improve our Forest School site. Some of us researched different trees we have in our Forest School area and made a fact file about them and some of us looked at different structures we could build to assist our learning such as a workshop for making things.

13th September 2023

For our first Forest School session we discussed all the things that we would like to do in the coming year and how we could improve our site as a class. We played one of our favourite games 'Wizards, Giants and Dwarves'

2022 - 2023

2021 - 2022