Panshanger Park Forest School

Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, working in partnership with Lafarge Tarmac, are setting up an exciting new Forest School Project at Panshanger Park.

Panshanger Park is located adjacent to the A414 between Welwyn Garden City and Hertford. It offers a fantastic outdoor environment for children to learn with its wetland, grassland and woodland habitats supporting one of the most diverse wildlife communities in Hertfordshire.

A Forest School learning area is due to be created within the park and we will be inviting local schools to take part in inspirational Forest School Programmes in the New Year.

To launch this exciting new project we are looking for local schools to take part in a free 6-week Forest School programme in the New Year 2015, with transport provided.

Our Forest School practitioners are able to design a Forest School programme to meet your needs and can be tailored to meet specific curriculum links.  We provide all of the lesson plans for Forest School and provide them to schools in advance for their opinions and approval. Whilst each session has a lesson plan, with learning objectives set, child-initiated learning is always encouraged.

What is Forest School?

Forest School is an inspirational process that offers ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through regular hands-on learning experiences in a natural environment.

Example activities for Early Years and Key Stage 1:

- Woodland walks and nature trails

- Nature crowns

- Minibeasting

- Shelter Building

- Making teddy homes

- Forest School stories

- Basic tool use to make minibeast hotels, wooden snakes, tree cookies, leaf presses etc.

- Building and lighting fires

- 123...where are you? Hide and seek game

- Puddle splashing, mud painting, mud sliding

- Exploring and collecting woodland materials to make natural art

- Scavenger hunts

- Clay creatures

- Natural music

Example activities for Key Stage 2 (as above plus the following):

- Nature detectives

- Constructing ovens and cooking food on fire

- Building wooden and rope bridges

- Blindfold / trust games

- Using tools to create woodland crafts e.g. whistles, charcoal pencils, mallets etc.

- Willow weaving

- Exploring habitats