Helping Children Connect with Nature
The Editor Interviews Forest School Leader Clair Cobbold
Re-Betchworth Forest School, led by Betchworth resident Clair Cobbold, is up and running well. In this interview we explore what Forest School means to Clair.
Clair engaging her students at
RE-Betchworth Forest School
What is a Forest School, and who is it for?
A Forest School is a way of getting children to learn together outdoors, in a natural environment. It's called a school but it's very different to a traditional school, the main idea being that it is child led. I usually have some pre-planned structured activities, but the children can go off and play in the woods if that’s what they want to do. We do lots of things like making and using tools, exploring for bugs, looking at and listening to the birds and the wildlife and playing in trees. We cover a huge variety of different things, but all outside. Forest School is for anyone from pre-school aged children all the way through to teenagers and even adults, although we have limited our Forest School to children up to 10 years old, at the moment.
What are the benefits to participants?
Forest School helps build resilience and encourages children to be curious and resourceful. Through experimentation they find different ways to approach a task; if they can't do it one way, they can try another. When you're outside in nature, you've got a whole host of loose objects that can be used often suggesting different ways of doing things. You can keep trying a task, keep practising it in different ways and eventually you'll learn to do it.
Experiencing nature is fantastic for mental health; so many studies show that just being immersed in nature reduces anxiety and stress, especially important after Covid in children. We have many issues relating to sustaining our planet, so we need our children to grow up connected to and wanting to help nature. If they haven't got those positive experiences of being in nature, then why should they try?
Why did you become a Forest School Leader?
Being in nature is second nature to me as I grew up on a large estate where I wandered freely and knew every inch of it. I decided I wanted to be a Forest School leader because when I trained to be a teacher, I could see that children often found the classroom difficult, and I felt that the children didn’t get enough time outside. I believe if a child finds a task difficult, if you take them outdoors, they can often find a different way of doing it – being outside stimulates imagination. For example, at the school where I teach, the children tried to write a story about a pebble but they were finding it hard to imagine. So we all went outside and found our pebble and we came up with lots of ideas about what the pebble might have done, where it lived and so on. Just being outside and immersed in nature helped the children who find writing more difficult to imagine the possibilities.
The Editor Interviews Forest School Leader Clair Cobbold
Re-Betchworth Forest School, led by Betchworth resident Clair Cobbold, is up and running well. In this interview we explore what Forest School means to Clair.
Clair engaging her students at
RE-Betchworth Forest School
What is a Forest School, and who is it for?
A Forest School is a way of getting children to learn together outdoors, in a natural environment. It's called a school but it's very different to a traditional school, the main idea being that it is child led. I usually have some pre-planned structured activities, but the children can go off and play in the woods if that’s what they want to do. We do lots of things like making and using tools, exploring for bugs, looking at and listening to the birds and the wildlife and playing in trees. We cover a huge variety of different things, but all outside. Forest School is for anyone from pre-school aged children all the way through to teenagers and even adults, although we have limited our Forest School to children up to 10 years old, at the moment.
What are the benefits to participants?
Forest School helps build resilience and encourages children to be curious and resourceful. Through experimentation they find different ways to approach a task; if they can't do it one way, they can try another. When you're outside in nature, you've got a whole host of loose objects that can be used often suggesting different ways of doing things. You can keep trying a task, keep practising it in different ways and eventually you'll learn to do it.
Experiencing nature is fantastic for mental health; so many studies show that just being immersed in nature reduces anxiety and stress, especially important after Covid in children. We have many issues relating to sustaining our planet, so we need our children to grow up connected to and wanting to help nature. If they haven't got those positive experiences of being in nature, then why should they try?
Why did you become a Forest School Leader?
Being in nature is second nature to me as I grew up on a large estate where I wandered freely and knew every inch of it. I decided I wanted to be a Forest School leader because when I trained to be a teacher, I could see that children often found the classroom difficult, and I felt that the children didn’t get enough time outside. I believe if a child finds a task difficult, if you take them outdoors, they can often find a different way of doing it – being outside stimulates imagination. For example, at the school where I teach, the children tried to write a story about a pebble but they were finding it hard to imagine. So we all went outside and found our pebble and we came up with lots of ideas about what the pebble might have done, where it lived and so on. Just being outside and immersed in nature helped the children who find writing more difficult to imagine the possibilities.
What did you have to do to become a Forest School Leader?
I had to do a wide-ranging training course to become a Forest School leader – covering the benefits of Forest Schools, lesson planning, safe use of tools, fire making and things like that. I also learnt how to manage a woodland area because what you don't want to do is go into a space and inadvertently destroy it ending up with no bugs, no insects, no wildlife and plants for the children to study.
What experiences have you had in setting up Betchworth’s Forest School?
It's been brilliant to meet families in the local area who have that passion for nature as well, and it’s also been a joy to see how giving people are. Someone even gave us a mud kitchen and brought it over to the Forest School site for me. As a teacher it's been fantastic to see the looks on children's faces as they find bugs, learn new skills and make new friends out in nature. The main challenge has been the weather; but we live in England where it rains as much as it's sunny, so it's kind of important to get outside in all weathers. My hope is that what we do is exciting enough to make people want to come out, whatever the weather.
What would a typical session in a Forest School look and feel like?
We usually start off by spending some time exploring the site, looking for anything that we might need to be aware of; like if there are mushrooms we need to know not to pick them, and to avoid brambles and stinging nettles. Obviously, I will have looked around the site beforehand to make sure it's safe, but it’s important to involve the children in that risk assessment because learning to assess risk is an important skill. Then we usually spend time doing an activity. So we might make a bird feeder or do a bug hunt or a scavenger hunt. There will be things available to try using for example the mud kitchen, or we might have a hammer, or some arts and crafts materials as well; children can join in with the activity, but they can also be independent and do their own thing as well. As long as the weather is on our side the children will have a go at lighting a fire. We spend some time sitting around the fire and usually cook something on it - popcorn, maybe some dippy cheese or marshmallows – and we might share a story or sing some songs, then spend a little time thinking about what they might want to do next time. What ideas do they have? Is there anything they would like to do? Bringing in those child-led ideas so we can go wherever the children want to go.
At our last session we created a wildflower patch as part of Re-B’s B-Line mini wildflower meadow project. The children started off by digging some holes - all kids love to dig - then they made some soil balls mixed with wildflower seeds and chucked them towards the bare patch where they had been digging. They loved it! We had explained what we were doing and why we were doing it and we read a story around the fire about insects and what the wildflowers would do. So it made a lovely connection to helping nature.
Forest school participants making and throwing wildflower seed bombs
I had to do a wide-ranging training course to become a Forest School leader – covering the benefits of Forest Schools, lesson planning, safe use of tools, fire making and things like that. I also learnt how to manage a woodland area because what you don't want to do is go into a space and inadvertently destroy it ending up with no bugs, no insects, no wildlife and plants for the children to study.
What experiences have you had in setting up Betchworth’s Forest School?
It's been brilliant to meet families in the local area who have that passion for nature as well, and it’s also been a joy to see how giving people are. Someone even gave us a mud kitchen and brought it over to the Forest School site for me. As a teacher it's been fantastic to see the looks on children's faces as they find bugs, learn new skills and make new friends out in nature. The main challenge has been the weather; but we live in England where it rains as much as it's sunny, so it's kind of important to get outside in all weathers. My hope is that what we do is exciting enough to make people want to come out, whatever the weather.
What would a typical session in a Forest School look and feel like?
We usually start off by spending some time exploring the site, looking for anything that we might need to be aware of; like if there are mushrooms we need to know not to pick them, and to avoid brambles and stinging nettles. Obviously, I will have looked around the site beforehand to make sure it's safe, but it’s important to involve the children in that risk assessment because learning to assess risk is an important skill. Then we usually spend time doing an activity. So we might make a bird feeder or do a bug hunt or a scavenger hunt. There will be things available to try using for example the mud kitchen, or we might have a hammer, or some arts and crafts materials as well; children can join in with the activity, but they can also be independent and do their own thing as well. As long as the weather is on our side the children will have a go at lighting a fire. We spend some time sitting around the fire and usually cook something on it - popcorn, maybe some dippy cheese or marshmallows – and we might share a story or sing some songs, then spend a little time thinking about what they might want to do next time. What ideas do they have? Is there anything they would like to do? Bringing in those child-led ideas so we can go wherever the children want to go.
At our last session we created a wildflower patch as part of Re-B’s B-Line mini wildflower meadow project. The children started off by digging some holes - all kids love to dig - then they made some soil balls mixed with wildflower seeds and chucked them towards the bare patch where they had been digging. They loved it! We had explained what we were doing and why we were doing it and we read a story around the fire about insects and what the wildflowers would do. So it made a lovely connection to helping nature.
Forest school participants making and throwing wildflower seed bombs
Q5 What is your vision for the future of the Forest School?
It would be wonderful to get enough take up so that we could have sessions for different age groups. At the moment we have a mixed age group stopping at about 10, but the age range means that we sometimes have to split to do different things: some tool work with the older ones and crafting with the younger ones. And I would love to set up a group for older teenagers because they are often forgotten. There are a lot of mental health issues at this age and getting out into nature and spending time in nature has been shown to help mental health. Above all I want Forest School to help build that really important connection with nature so that as children become teens and then adults, they want to help the planet and nature.
Editor: It’s inspiring to hear Clair talk with such passion and conviction about what she is doing. Helping young people to develop the physical and emotional connection to nature is essential if we are to stand a chance of meeting the enormous challenge of creating a sustainable future for all life on this planet.
Next Forest School sessions: Saturday 29 April, 3 June and 1 July
Village children £10 per session. Book or find out more by contacting Clair Cobbold: [email protected] or 07799 305 378.
It would be wonderful to get enough take up so that we could have sessions for different age groups. At the moment we have a mixed age group stopping at about 10, but the age range means that we sometimes have to split to do different things: some tool work with the older ones and crafting with the younger ones. And I would love to set up a group for older teenagers because they are often forgotten. There are a lot of mental health issues at this age and getting out into nature and spending time in nature has been shown to help mental health. Above all I want Forest School to help build that really important connection with nature so that as children become teens and then adults, they want to help the planet and nature.
Editor: It’s inspiring to hear Clair talk with such passion and conviction about what she is doing. Helping young people to develop the physical and emotional connection to nature is essential if we are to stand a chance of meeting the enormous challenge of creating a sustainable future for all life on this planet.
Next Forest School sessions: Saturday 29 April, 3 June and 1 July
Village children £10 per session. Book or find out more by contacting Clair Cobbold: [email protected] or 07799 305 378.