Technically any childcare setting that takes children outside on a regular basis can call themselves a Forest school. The only requirement is that children are able to access a woodland environment on a regular basis. For this reason there are often many “Forest schools” for parents to choose from, with various degrees of implementation of the full list of forest school ethos requirements. We have detailed the 6 guiding principles of forest school as agreed by the Forest School Association and the wider community in 2011 above. As a guide to parents I would be encouraged by Forest schools that can demonstrate they follow these guiding principles as part of their day to day activities and ethos. I would be wary of settings that are not able to demonstrate how they incorporate these into their curriculum and if you are not able to find their leaders or the settings as a whole on the FSA directory. 

The FSA stands for the Forest School Association. They are a professional body and UK wide voice for Forest school, promoting and supporting best practice, cohesion and ‘quality Forest School for All’. 

More on who they are can be found on their website here.

As stated on their website the national FSA recognised Forest School Provider scheme has been created as a benchmarking and development tool that sets the minimum professional standard for Forest School provision. The scheme is open to settings who wish to be recognised by the FSA as providing experiences in line with all 6 core Forest School principles. 

To be able to apply for this setting recognition there is also a requirement on the session leaders/ managers of the setting to have already carried out their level 3 Forest School leader training through one of the fsa recognised training partners. 

Once a setting has been awarded FSA recognition they are able to use the FSA recognised badge on their social media and website. They are then also published on the national FSA directory, which allows you to find all the FSA recognised settings nationwide. 

For settings to be able to retain their recognition status and directory listing they must go through a smaller confirmation application every year, proving that they themselves have continued to educate themselves on forest school, child development and education in a forest environment as well as maintaining their alignment to the 6 core principles of Forest School. Settings that are not able to prove their continued alignment will be removed from the registry and will no longer be able to use the badge as part of their branding. 

Annie and Co were very proud to be only the 6th provider in London to receive this prestigious recognition and only the 2nd Early Years Provider in all of London in 2022. They are currently the only setting in North London to have achieved this recognition for an Early Years setting and have gone on to retain their recognition through all the subsequent annual checks and intend to continue in this vein. 

You can find their listing on the FSA directory here 

You can find out more about the application on their application page here

As mentioned in one of the previous questions, settings that have been recognised by the FSA can be found on their international directory of FSA recognised settings. 

If your child already attends a forest school you can check if they have been awarded the FSA recognition badge by searching the setting name on the directory. Or by typing in your city and looking at map flags that come up. 

It is not a requirement for forest schools to apply for this recognition, however it is a powerful tool for parents looking to find settings that are performing in line with the 6 guiding principles and have opened up their setting to be regularly checked and held accountable to industry best practice from an outside adjudicator. 

Go to the FSA Directory here

The term ‘Forest Leader’ is a practitioner that has carried out training to level 3. These are practitioners that have taken time to educate themselves on how to run forest school sessions and activities as well as plan a forest curriculum and manage a team of forest practitioners. 

There are many courses on offer for people to get trained in Forest School. But to go on and have success and maintain alignment with the FSA best practice for training a prospective leader should be able to share the following with you as detailed on the FSA website here ;

Documents that the prospective leader should be able to share with you

• Their Level 3 Forest School practitioner certificate. Do check that it is a certificate of accreditation from the relevant awarding body (such as OCN or BTec), rather than just a certificate of attendance provided by the training organisation.

• Their DBS (Disclosure and Barring Services) check – if working with children or vulnerable adults.  In Scotland this will be a Protection of Vulnerable Groups Scheme membership membership.

• Evidence of an appropriate First Aid certificate – with an outdoor element to the training.

• Evidence that appropriate insurance is in place – such as a letter or certificate.

• Evidence of an appropriate food hygiene certificate – if the programme is likely to involve regular handling, preparing and cooking of food (such as camp cooking).

• Their Forest School handbook. This document contains all the policies and procedures relevant to the way they run their Forest School programmes. This handbook should be unique to them and specific to how they run their programmes.

As mentioned above, anyone can call themselves a Forest School and it is not a requirement for settings to apply to be recognised by the FSA. While some settings may well be providing Forest School inline with the 6 guiding principles the only way to be sure of this is to use the FSA directory to find settings that have been proven and awarded this status. This would have been awarded by an impartial adjudicator so parents can be sure that what the setting is promoting and what is actually being provided is aligned. 

As an early years setting we are committed to bringing children into forest school as early as possible. We have experience with looking after children as young as 6 months at our setting. We have a strong focus on building a strong relationship with the parents so that we can all be on the same page in providing what each child needs. If us at the setting and the parents can work together to make sure each child is warm enough and given what they need we have found that young children flourish in a Forest setting. In fact the youngest children are arguably the ones that reap the most rewards from Forest School. In our experience children developing children that are working towards their learning milestones in all 7 areas of learning actually hit these sooner when learning and developing in a forest environment. 

We have also found that children who have spent their whole preschool development in a forest school setting, leave for school much more resilient, confident and capable of dealing with the pressures of the new environment and challenge that formal education brings than children who are not able to develop in this environment. 

In Fact we are firm believers that if there is anything that you can do to best prepare your child for the learning requirements as well as social requirements that come with starting school then there is nothing stronger than a holistic forest school education

We believe there is no such thing as cold weather, only the wrong clothing. Both children and adults spend the whole day outside so we ask parents to make sure that their children come with as many layers as you think they might need. Some children feel the cold more than others, this shouldn’t mean that they can’t enjoy a forest setting. It just means that they need more help to feel comfortable before getting on and enjoying what the setting has to offer. If you are the parent of a chilly little one, we ask you to throw in as many as layers as you can and we will make sure to keep them warm. Of course the youngest children are able to have some respite from the cold in our purpose built cabin. We are able to take advantage of this to cook warm food and give the children shelter if the weather is too cold or wet for them to deal with. 

The Montersorri Ethos and the Forest School ethos are very often compared with each other and in some way are very close in their goals. For example both methods see children holistically and both would be considered ‘constructivist’ i.e. ‘learning by doing’. 

However where they differ is that Montessori approach would take place in a pre-prepared classroom and therefore comes with some inherent rigidity from the setting itself. Forest school on the other hand takes place in a completely natural environment and so is inherently open ended and children are not provided with resources in the same way but ‘make their own resources’ and games from the environment itself. 

The other main key difference is the promotion of risk taking. Children are trusted by adults to decide how far they think they can push themselves and to assess risks themselves. Adults are not authority figures in the same way but a support when children need them. This is crucial as it leads to a culture of ‘learning from valuable mistakes’, where as a Montesorri setting would use a more corrective approach to mistakes. 

Whilst it is possible, it would be conflicting for a setting to offer both Montessori AND Forest School. Whilst you might say that some of the day they are inside doing pre-prepared activities and some of the day they are outside doing Forest School activities. To provide both would entail completely different rules and behavior from both the children and the adults in both settings. Parents being faced with settings that are claiming to provide both should ask- Is my child mostly inside with pre-prepared activities in a classroom with a ‘teacher figure’? Or is my child free to exercise true self risk assessment and open ended play without much adult intervention?

Forest School and the Reggio Emilia ethos’ are much more closely aligned and can be worked through together in settings. This and Scandinavian approach to child development are the most closely aligned to Forest School ethos and the idea of the child. 

Very good article on this here

We have detailed a list of these below but there are a copious amount of benefits that a Forest Education can bring to a child. Many of these can be found on the FSA website again. There have also been various studies into Forest School education and we invite parents to have a read through the research. The FSA website is a good place to start although there is much to be found on the wider internet too of course. 

Parents with children in a strong Forest School setting should notice progress in their child almost immediately. Our parents have reported noticing increased independence, willingness to try new things for themselves. As well as this they often notice that not only are they willing to try new things they are also not afraid to try something and fail initially, but then go on to continue trying, without getting frustrated to be able to successfully achieve things in the end, notably without adult intervention. 

Parents often report that children are able to regulate their emotions better and explain themselves when they are perhaps struggling or becoming frustrated. They also notice that children become much more socially aware. They seek to involve peers in games and free play and are better equipped to negotiate and understand other people's emotions and feelings. 

This is not to say that these things can’t and won’t be learnt in other environments but Forest School education is perfectly place to equip children with what’s required to be a valuable member of overall society that you are part of and can be a powerful way to set your little ones on the right path with very little effort other than the freedom to develop in a woodland environment under the watchful eye of educated Forest practitioners.