Transcript
MOHAMED
It’s the best day ever.
FERNANDO
Well, my name is Fernando. I’m 24. And I come from Spain. I came here five months ago in November. I decided to try teaching in early years because I think it’s like, a challenge for me, and I really wanted to get to know the children and how they learn, how they develop their skills. And I don’t know, I think I’m going to stay here for quite a long time because I honestly love this profession.
[INAUDIBLE] Eunice. Mohamed, what will happen if we put these steps a little bit forward? You think you can jump this distance?
MOHAMED
Oh, yeah.
FERNANDO
This is for-- going to be too much. Maybe try it from this distance. OK? There we go. There you go. Well done. I think risky play is one important thing in any child’s development, because it helps them to develop skills that are going to be really useful for them in the future.
If they feel like they’re doing it on their own, and they’ve taken the risk-- I don’t know-- they will know that for some things in life, they need to actually take risks, and they will learn from that. Well, that’s going to be too much, you think? OK. That’s perfect.
I know all the children, so I can tell which one of them are really ready to take the risks. Jump. 1, 2. Eunice. A little bit more?
MOHAMED
Not much.
FERNANDO
Wow. That was incredible, Mohamed. Well done. It’s too far away, right, Eunice? Maybe we’ll move this red one a little bit more. Keep going, Eunice. Mohamed, careful with Eunice head. Whoa! What happened here? Eunice, have you go. Let’s go.
MOHAMED
I want to jump.
FERNANDO
Whoa! Wibbly wobbly. Mohamed.
IAN POWELL
Oh, Delay is running. Delay is up ahead. Yacine. Another aspect at Forest School that I observe quite a lot is children sort of self risk taking and working out what’s their limit in feeling safe or even feeling unsafe.
Because at Forest School, we give the children the freedom to roam and explore. And some children would just go running ahead. They’ll just want to run and run and run. And what intrigues me is that with some children, they’ll just keep running and some children will run so many yards and then look back to the adult. And what’s interesting is, when did children decide for themselves, do I feel safe or do I feel unsafe?
So we do allow the children to have that freedom to do that. On the odd occasion we might have to run after a child, but most children will look back and return to you. Another aspect is in terms of climbing trees. We climb a lot of fallen trees. A few children might want to climb up a tree, and what we encourage there is, rather than the adults helping the child physically, we encourage them to work out what they can achieve themselves.
And some children might only climb one foot up a tree and then ask for help, and we’ll say, we’ll just reward them for, oh, that’s really good. You’ve climbed so high. And I wonder how you’re going to get down. And so they have to try and figure out how they’re going to get down. And then the next time they go they might climb two foot up a tree. So over time children think for themselves. When do I feel safe? How high can I climb a tree? So they’re sort of like self-regulating their own sense of awareness on that.