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# 3.1 Learning environments outside the classroom

One learning environment far outside the classroom is Forest Schools (FS), first conceived by Gösta Frohm in Sweden in the 1950s. FS came to England in 1995 (Pound, 2014) and while originally for early years (EY), the approach has been taken up across the primary years with around 10,000 FS across the UK (McCree and Cree, 2017, cited in Waite and Goodenough, 2018, p. 27). Taking part in FS offers children the chance to interact with their peers and trained practitioners in an outdoor area with trees – this can be a local wooded area or managed park. Children are taught practical skills, such as how to saw logs, make fires and cook food outside. Carrying a level of risk unacceptable in a traditional classroom, the activities are carefully scaffolded and supervised.

## Activity 6

Allow 15 minutes

Watch this video of a child making a mallet in Forest Schools. Then respond to the points which follow, capturing what the child and the adult is doing and saying and how this dialogic interaction and activity is supporting learning.

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Video 3 Forest schools
Transcript

1. What is the child doing and saying?
2. What is the adult doing and saying?
3. Interpretation of learning

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### Discussion

1. The child is sawing a branch to make a wooden mallet. The child struggles to maintain the saw’s blade in the first shallow groove that the practitioner has made. He also struggles to create a smooth rhythm for the saw, and it slips from the groove.

   When the child retakes the saw, he has more confidence in his sawing motion and is successful in sawing through the branch.

2. The practitioner holds the end of the branch to allow the child to focus on the sawing.

   When the child fails to make progress, reaching his initial capability, the practitioner takes the saw, modelling how to hold the saw and the rhythm of the sawing movement, creating a deeper groove to make it easier for the child.

   The practitioner reminds the child to concentrate.

3. The child is first offered support to hold the branch and then the adult models how to hold the saw and the action required to make a cut. The adult verbalises their actions alongside showing the child. This support is enough to complement the child’s existing understanding of the activity, and his understanding of using a saw, he is able to apply his new understanding and use the saw effectively and safely to achieve the aims of the activity. The child can be seen to reach the limit of their understanding and then, with support, learn the basic skills to master sawing the wood.

If you’d like to know more about learning environments, you might like to explore this OpenLearn course: Young children, the outdoors and nature.

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