Very sadly, our children do not remain with us forever. They leave us and take the big step into big girl/big boy school and our role is to ensure they are ready for this. 'School readiness' is a term regularly banded about that has very varied connotations. To us, school readiness means being a confident, independent, self-motivated, curious, resilient, and enthusiastic little learner. It means having an empathetic character and understanding the importance of kindness. It means knowing that failure is merely an opportunity to try again. If we can send children out into the big world equipped with these crucial life skills, then we are very happy indeed.

Our outdoor setting with activities such as tool work and den building encourages independence and resilience in our children. Our Forest School activities are devised to allow risk taking in a safe environment, building confidence and a sense of achievement in our children, setting them up for life at school. 

At School Outdoors the natural environment provides a brilliant stimulus to develop all areas of children’s learning including communication, personal social and emotional development, and physical skills. For example, the discovery of a worm can inspire talk about habitats, different insects and different textures providing children with a rich and broad vocabulary. Instructions and advice on climbing trees and using tools also greatly helps to improve children’s listening skills. Learning in the natural world helps children to develop empathy towards living things and our high staff to child ratio means that staff can support children through behavioural issues that may arise. 

English and Math’s are intertwined into learning at School Outdoors. For example, when collecting leaves or stones, we will count these when we get back and add the different collections together to make a total. Children regularly experiment with weights, lengths, and measures such as measuring out water in the mud kitchen or comparing lengths of sticks. We read stories regularly at School Outdoors and often mark make, whether it be writing on paper writing in the ground using a stick.

We maintain an effective relationship with parents during this time of transition so that they are informed of their child’s progress and what they can do at home to ensure their child is ready for school.