Evaluation: I got involved in the Forest Schools programme through our Shared Education project with our partner School Taughmonagh. Our focus for our project had always been learning outdoors as we have a shared tree trail that runs through both our school buildings and making the most of this shared space seemed fitting for a shared education project.

The Shared Education Project runs for 4 years and years one and two had seen us and our colleagues involved invent outdoor themes, projects and topics to work on within our project. At the end of year two we came across the NIFSA ks1 and ks2 lessons and activities handbook and it was here that we began to look into the forest schools programme.

In year three we had integrated the distance learning forest Schools Programme into our action plan and both myself and the coordinator from our partner school began our training. We done our sessions as joint lessons and worked with Year 5s, 6s and 7s from the Speech and language unit class in Taughmonagh and two Year 6 classes with pupils with a wide range of Special Educational Needs from our school.

Learning outdoors and the Forest Schools concept had always seemed fitting for us, especially working with SEN pupils, however it did pose a lot of risks and individual risk assessments had to be taken into account. This was the first of many surprises I had undergoing the programme. The pupils responded excellently to the rules and displayed a great understanding of why we needed them. The high motivation of learning outdoors allowed them to make good choices and with very little verbal encouragement. The pupils also exhibited brilliant peer educating and learning when understanding and remembering the rules, the short, simple 3 rule approach was at a level that suited their needs and understanding, and it helped a lot that the final rule was to "Have fun!"

Working with children with SEN the Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities (TSPC) are an important tool of progression and assessment. They are also imperative for social and emotional development for our pupils. The Forest Schools programme integrates and is an excellent opportunity to nurture and develop these skills. The most evident areas I witnessed being developed and in cases where the pupils even surpassed my expectations where "Working with others" and "Being creative". The pupils were exposed to unfamiliar social situations working alongside the pupils from Taughmonagh and their confidence showed steady progress throughout the sessions. The pupils' creative skills were most effected through the Forest Schools Sessions, they were so focused and proud of their work and needed very little adult prompting or interaction. I came to realise that the freedom of having a large area to explore, observe and collect for creative activities played a big part in the pupils' creative development and the outcomes were fantastic!

Finally, the most effective outcome of being part of the Forest Schools programme was the social, emotional and behavioural development of our pupils. Being outdoors in an unfamiliar setting with unfamiliar people can be daunting for some of the pupils we work with, and it did prove difficult in the first few sessions. However, the calm, mindful environment played a vital part in the support and encouragement for involvement with the pupils finding it difficult. At Forest Schools there are three rules and one is to have fun, the other two are quite clearly for safety and management of activities. With no other demands on our pupils they were a lot more relaxed and could be reassured and made to feel at ease much quicker than in a classroom or indoors environment. There is the opportunity to watch from the peripheral but at the same time experiencing the world around them and then make an informed decision to join in or not. This also provided other pupils with opportunities to develop peer educating skills and working with others. Another key area we observed forest schools showing a positive impact was the attention skills of our pupils. Having such a wide area of exploration and being given the opportunity to take charge of their own learning helped the pupils attention skills to develop and deepen. They were more willing to listen to instruction for longer periods of time and recall our forest school rules each lesson. The short bursts of activities and coming back together to evaluate as a group was suited to the needs of our pupils. It also provided the children with opportunities to expand and develop some thinking skills and personal capabilities skills (TSPC), for example managing information, an area that our pupils would have difficulty in. However, through forest schools they were able to listen for key information or instruction on what our aims of the lessons were and manage that information to produce an outcome completely independently. Other TSPC skills were and continue to be developed through the forest schools approach, such as working with others, asking for help, building confidence, curiosity, exploration and questioning and target setting and feedback. We observed that all these areas were positively impacted throughout the lessons and provided a great opportunity to strengthen these skills.

The Forest School also allowed our pupils to develop there caring and nurturing skills and taught them the importance of using "gentle hands" and caring for their environment and why it is important. It was an opportunity for some of our pupils to know what it is like to be calm and still for a short period of time and to build on this.

Forest Schools has been an incredible experience and been incorporated into our action plan for our final year of our Shared Education Project, were all year groups will be involved in shared Forest Schools projects and lessons. It is also envisaged that we as accredited leaders will share our experiences and knowledge of forest schools with both school's staff through staff training and promote the use of forest schools to the other schools on our surrounding campus.

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