Report by Jenny Cater 

This practical workshop for school staff, forest school leaders and others working in the educational field was attended by 18 people from across the south west region. The start of the day revealed the range and mix of practitioners and their reasons for attending – teaching assistants delivering Forest School, BTCV volunteer co-ordinator wanting to make links with the curriculum, a couple from Arnos Vale cemetery, Bristol getting ideas for outdoor learning, teacher from north Devon looking for more inspiration for his Bushcraft and Country Way woods, teachers from a special school seeing how to use the outdoors for life skills, and teaching staff from a range of schools from Bath to Dorset wanting inspiring ideas for getting outside in their school grounds.

 The main aims of the day were to get ideas, games, inspiration and confidence to deliver a range of literacy, numeracy and cross curriculum topics outdoors. In the morning sessions the 3 groups, Early Years and KS1, Special Needs, Secondary and outdoor practitioners rotated around activity based workshops set in different parts of the woodland.

 Jacky King, (Arts projects, creative writing, author, outdoor learning in schools) took them on a journey of discovery to open up ideas for using the outside for literacy – woodland consequences, description and adjectives for poems, story telling and trails for spicing up the senses

Jenny Cater (Space 2 Play. Outdoor Learning Environments and FS leader) used ‘nature’s natural numbers’ on wooden cookies to create curving number lines to jump on and use for a range of numeracy skills. Journey sticks were made into 3D shapes and Pythagoras’s theorem of 3, 4, 5 triangles were used to make large scale quadrants.

Deb Millar (Outdoor educationalist, archaeologist and FS Leader) enticed the different groups into a world of fantasy with the creation of miniature habitats, getting enthusiastic about fantasy bugs and mapping out the environment using sensory trails.

 After a welcome lunch of hot soup to warm everyone (thanks Karen!) the afternoon session by Jenny gave a brief introduction to the process of designing and landscaping your own space to get outside and be inspired to learn. Finding out how everyone feels about their environment, zoning different areas (fire/cooking, access points, tool activity, woodlands and wildlife) and deciding on a project they could take back and put into practice were the key elements. By the end of the day, the wind had whistled through the trees and we were getting chilly but there was a buzz of enthusiasm and requests for more learning outside workshops in the woods. Perhaps the greatest inspiration had come from being in the woodland environment with so many like minded people and sharing possibilities and ideas for getting outside and using our natural surroundings to inspire our teaching and learning.

 Feedback: What Inspired you today??

 A great mix of ideas and discussion. Lots of ideas to work and develop. Great atmosphere generated. Thank you.

 Best bit is ideas sparked from each other

Made me feel that outdoor (FS) learning is fulfilling and has spurred me on!

 Whole day was inspirational and supportive. Love the space. Great soups. Very helpful grounds talk.

 Stimulus for literacy I found useful and will definitely organise. Particularly developing a story trail, what happens where…..

 What inspired me? Numeracy line and literacy games.

 Seeing the site and realising what can be done in our compound (which is going to become an outdoor learning space)

 Enthusiastic organisers. Inspiring site.

 Being creative. Something good from natural materials.

 Fire circle, chatting, sharing. Thank you!

 Many thanks. Sharing ideas. Camp fire – central point. Freedom within self and the surrounding area.

 Opening circle – network of like minded people.

 Tranquility

 Great ideas to practically use.

 Great ideas. Meeting people

 Fab!!

Our beautiful earth dragon is now finished thanks to the Tree Pirates and will shortly be planted up with wild flowers.

Our regular groups continue.

Over Easter we ran a woodland playscheme and also hosted a day with Promise mentors and their mentees. We enjoyed the CSOLP 5 year celebrations which was a lovely informal evening of food and camp fire, spent reflecting on all that has been achieved since we started our group. 

Several other groups also ran holiday activities at Hallr Wood.

We look forward to a busy summer, enjoying the benefits of all our hard work! Special thanks to our trusty volunteers who help on Wednesdays.

Pine cones were ‘found’ and collected on the trail and then filled with a bird food mixture. Some loved the different textures involved, others left the sticky bits to others! The filled pine cones were then taken out into the wood and hung on branches for the woodland birds to find.
Meanwhile cooking was getting underway back at the campfire. 17 baked potatoes were buried in the ashes and left to bake as a team set off to plant trees in the wood.
The Woodland Trust has kindly donated a mixture of trees that will eventually bear edible fruit: blackthorn, elder, crab apple & wild rose.
A wonderful tree planting team planted 10 trees, complete with stakes and protective spirals, while others engaged in clearing ivy away from selected trees. One boy just enjoyed sitting on the woodland floor soaking up the peaceful atmosphere. We were lucky to have a sunny and warmish day!

At lunch time young people helped cook and eat: 60 sausages, (plus 6 veggie ones) 15 baked potatoes, a big pan of homemade baked beans and loads toasted bread, all prepared on the campfire.
After lunch we were treated to a wonderful story about the beginning of spring, told by our visiting story teller Amanda. All (but the most hyper-active), listened enthralled, including the boys.
Young people then had the choice of various activities and took part in: peeling sticks and making charcoal around the fire; helping create a beautiful ‘free form’ willow screen in our woodland garden; sawing firewood using the bow saw; using tools to make gypsy flowers, bows and arrows, creating & using a safe target run in the woods;
The older boys were able to go into the wood with the buddies for target practice with only monitoring adult supervision needed. This was a wonderful freedom for both the disabled young people and the buddies involved.
The presence of the Langport buddies worked really well, they took on
mentoring 3 young people, all with varying degrees of Autism. They had to be reminded a few times but they hung on in there, showed care for others and created a brilliant, safe, boys atmosphere. I think those less able really loved it and really felt part of a group.
One very hyperactive autistic girl loved just hanging around the boys when they were using tools. I was very impressed by the maturity of the buddies who were able to accommodate this in a safe, non confrontational way.

The day finished with a review looking at photos of activities and sticking 2 stickers on favourites

Many thanks to Karen, Amanda, Camilla, Kevin, Fiveways School support carers Jane, Mary, John, Emma, Lauren, Alice, and Langport Buddies Matt, Joe and Keiral, for making this day such a success and enabling the group of young people, who normally spend a lot of their time indoors, to ‘Get out in the woods and go wild’!

Also many thanks to the Short Breaks funding team for their continuing support!

Hannah Aitken
Wilderwoods Forest School Leader

• The events page now shows a list of upcoming events as well as a calendar. Events for both sites can be found here.
• Hallr Wood and Drayton Woods are now separate main pages to make them easier to find.
• Photo galleries for the two woods are now added to their respective pages.
• The gallery software has been updated to help show off all of our lovely photos.

We all managed to finish our baskets except for Cee who was supposed to be cooking anyway!They will be running willow baskets in January at Drayton.

Two of our regular volunteers have recently gained their third and top John Muir Award. This is a huge achievement requiring sustained commitment and the boys have been working towards it since March.

The photo is of Mark Johnson who has been coming weekly to Hallr Wood. He is an expert on bird identification and can recognize and imitate bird calls. For this award he also helped out at Bath & West Show on our stall there. Here he is showing his award presented to him by Juliet our chair person.

Henry Street gained his Conserver Award some weeks earlier. Henry hopes to go into a career as a bushcraft instructor. Do have a look at the photos of the coracle he built for his Explorer Award which was launched this summer (in the Hallr Wood gallery).

We are now focusing on getting our access up and running and have finally received notification from SSDC that we have been authorised to proceed with the work. Our Forestry and Conservation group have been working on landscaping inside the wood – they have designed a path to connect the car area with the green wood working shelter. They have also improved the bridge and started helping Martyn on the shed extension.

Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive and helpful. Hopefully our planning battles will soon be completely over.