- Love, Learn, Live
- Keeping Safe
- Communicate, Present & Record
- Achieve
- Create & Innovate
- Reflect & Evaluate
- Collaborate, Inspire & Lead
- Explorers are working towards their Pebble Award.
- Adventurers are working towards their Bronze Award.
- Voyagers are working towards their Silver Award.
- Pioneers are working towards their Gold Award.
Pebble Award
The start of our forest based learning journey begins with our young Explorers, their natural curiosity and ability to learn and discover through play, leads naturally into our Forest School ethos and school ethos, Love, Learn, Live
We offer regular opportunities for the children to enjoy being outside in different weathers, where they begin to understand the basic needs of survival. We provide waterproofs and encourage independent dressing and thinking about how to keep warm and dry.
We demonstrate safe practices as we learn, whilst giving the children the skills to recognise natural dangers and understand and overcome their fears.
Outdoor Play supports social, physical and mental development as well as the ability to identify, name and categorise flora and fauna.
Experiential learning through adult led challenges and free exploration develops creativity and scientific discovery, whilst building up a bank of skills that will support the children through primary and secondary education and develop life skills.
Since September Our Explorers have formed friendships, engaged in purposeful play and shown great enjoyment in our outdoor play area and our wild woodland.
We are very lucky to have such a variety of natural zones in our school grounds that offer a wealth of learning opportunities.
Keep checking in to our Forest School page to see the fun we are having.
Gathering resources and caring for wildlife.
Since half term our Reception children have had a dedicated session on a Thursday afternoon. We have used this time to explore the resources nature offers us by carefully selecting natural resources and using them to support our topic stories such as Room on the broom. We gathered fallen leaves and used attaching skills to tape them to sticks making ride-able brooms.
The children practiced transferring skills using bottles, jugs, funnels and pipettes to create bubble spell potions, using natural resources for ingredients, which they recalled in their write ups in the classroom.
We looked at our garden birds that need food and energy in Winter and used collage to make blue tits and robins to take home and fat balls to hang in our apple and cherry trees in school. All the fat balls have vanished so it looks like our feathered friends enjoyed their tasty treats and will be ready for our cold weather.
We began to explore using dogwood whips, which we use as the base for willow weaving later in school. The children warmed and bent the whips in their hands, making them into wreath shapes and over a couple of sessions have shown a keenness to master this technique. We used this skill to create Christmas decorations. The children are growing in confidence and will continue to Achieve as we develop these skills and new opportunities in the new year.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Silver Award
This term, our Voyagers have begun their journey towards their Silver Award. Our focus has been Keep Safe.
We began our year looking at how to keep ourselves and our friends safe. We have looked for real or potential dangers present in our wild woodland, whilst developing ways to record and share data. Working in small teams we have considered how to work safely when designing bridges and erecting tarpaulin shelters. We have modelled agreed safe practices such as manual handling using our two-man lift when equipment is taller or wider than you and our respect position when needing to keep balanced in the pond area and around the fire pit.
Gold Award
This term, our Pioneers have begun their journey towards their Gold Award. Their focus has also been Keep Safe.
Our Pioneers have been working closely with our Voyagers, sharing their knowledge and supporting each other when recording information and demonstrating early leadership skills when bringing teams together and looking out for our year 3’s who joined us in September.
Using our knowledge:
We have been using our specialist vocabulary ‘all about health and safety’.
We ended our first half term, by creating “how to keep safe” posters using our knowledge and design ideas to inform others.
We then held a community experience around the fire pit, sharing hot chocolate, marshmallows and a good old-fashioned sing-a-long.
Looking forward:
After the half term holidays, our Pioneers and Voyagers will continue to use their knowledge and specialist vocabulary to inform their planning and how they will work safely.
They shall be learning how to site and prepare an open fire as well as knot tying skills to use in team challenges.
Have a fabulous, safe and adventurous time on your holidays.
The FBL team.
