OUTDOOR NURSERIES

Golden leaves are falling, wood smoke is rising and a dressing-up box is placed in a small paddock for the horses. Parents are shivering in the cold, but none of the children are complaining.

In the Dandelion forest school, children learn through outside play all year round. Opening fires, messing around with tools, using outdoor toilets and playing outside in rain and snow may sound like a cruel punishment for kids, but forest schools are quietly spreading through Britain. After an inspiring trip to Danish nursery schools which are run on ‘open air life’ principles, the first forest school was established in Somerset in 1993. The Forest School Association charity has since helped 12,000 teachers and other professionals undertake forest school training. In Worcestershire alone, there are 360 forest schools, mostly primary schools.

These kinds of schools are for parents who want their children to experience the freedoms they once enjoyed when they were children. There is no indoors in the Dandelion forest school. Instead, there is a fire, a tree to climb, a sink where children can make mud pies, a mini-stage made from wooden pallets, a shed used as a toilet and a purple tent for quiet time, heated by a wood burner. The owner and once the primary school teacher of Dandelion says the kids gain self-esteem, learn to assess risk and make their own decisions. The north of Norway is in darkness for two months a year, and winter temperatures often fall below zero, but outdoor nurseries believe this type of education makes children more creative and independent. ‘We are competing with computer games,’ says Heidi Buvang, the outdoor teacher, ‘It is important to give children the desire to be outdoors.’ With these outdoor kindergartens, the children are shown from a very early age that the most precious things in life are found in nature.

(Adapted from Wild-learning and the Guardian website)