Fairview Primary School

Council area: Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council
Forest School contact: Neil McAllister
Main Forest School contact email address: nmcallister634@c2kni.net
School website address: www.fairviewps.co.uk
Year of Forest School accreditation: 2009

Background: Fairview Primary School became involved with NIFSA in 2009 when three Primary 6 teachers were trained in Forest School leadership, thanks to funding provided by Newtownabbey Borough Council. The school completed the John Muir award under the guidance of Dot Blakely, our trainer. A further block of training was provided in 2013/2014 and, since then, Forest School has taken off in Fairview. Primary 6 visit the Sixmilewater Park for 6 sessions per year, including a 'buddy' session with P2. Primary 7 also visit the park. A bank of lessons has been created which are available to all year groups in the school and are used throughout the year in our extensive school grounds. Neil McAllister has spoken about the many benefits of Forest School at clusters, teachmeets and conferences recently.

Investigating Forest School setting: Our Forest School site is our local park, the Sixmilewater Park in Ballyclare. The park is only 15 minutes walk from school but has a variety of locations where Forest School sessions can take place. We make extensive use of the Conservation Area, a part of the park not open to the public but available to Fairview with its own dedicated teaching area – perfect for 'Art al Fresco' and 'Literacy Logs'. The Meadow is on the other side of the river and has a number of locations perfect for accessing the river to do 'Kick Sampling' and gathering pebbles for 'Pebble Poems'. The Meadow also has great spots for ‘Den Building’ and excellent muddy paths to help with 'Tree Spirits'! The main part of the park is perfect for leaf identification due to the wide variety of trees. It really is the perfect park and Lindsay Houston, our local Biodiversity Officer, has worked very closely with us to ensure the park is the perfect outdoor classroom.

Read an evaluation of the NIFSA Forest School Programme for Fairview Primary School

Evaluation:

The Northern Ireland Curriculum has shifted emphasis in the last ten years from being predominantly a knowledge based curriculum to one which develops skills and capabilities required for lifelong learning. The inclusion of Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities, as well as Personal Development and Mutual Understanding, alongside the six Learning Areas provides great opportunities for the integration of a Forest School programme.

In Fairview Primary School, we have been actively involved in community projects for over ten years. We worked closely with our local council Biodiversity Officer, Lindsay Matthews (now Houston), on various projects including native tree planting, wildflower planting and CSI trails in the park. It was through this relationship that we first heard about Forest School. Training was set up and three P6 classes in the school benefited from this. Over the next couple of years, we maintained an interest in Forest School but not to the same extent as the initial training year. It was only after our second tranche of training (2013/2014), including two new P6 teachers, that Fairview really bought into the benefits. Since then, Primary 6 have been committed participants with every other year group involved, even if it is only in the school grounds because our Foundation classes do not have the legs to get up and down to the park (although P2 still manage a visit with their P6 buddies once a year)!

Over the years, we have found Forest School encourages and inspires children to develop an interest and affinity for the local environment. This local environment was initially our own Environmental Garden and the pride and ownership shown for this area demonstrates the value of involving pupils in its planning and development. With Forest School, we took ownership of our wild place, the Sixmilewater Park, and were able to discover, explore, conserve and share something new every time we visited. We have had many past pupils come back to visit us and talk about the trees they planted in the park, or the den they built by the river. Forest School makes an impact in a way normal classroom teaching cannot.

Many teachers talk about the focus on Communication and Using Maths in classrooms and how this does not allow for outdoor learning. We have dispelled this myth in Fairview. Forest School gives a range of opportunities in both those core areas, and the lessons are always so much more memorable for the pupils. We have developed 20 Forest School lessons and two thirds of those are focused on Communication or Using Maths, and sometimes both. All the lessons can be tailored to the class's needs and level. Lessons such as Story Sticks, Literacy Logs and Poetry Pebbles all have a Literacy focus while Tree Maths and River Races all have a Numeracy focus. All are outdoors, in our park, fully engaging the pupils.

We have found developing Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities best accomplished in the outdoors. Through Forest School, children are continually encouraged to find a variety of methods to solve problems. How can we identify trees when the leaves have fallen, how can we find the height of a tree, why do things grow where they do? All questions we have attempted to answer but, more importantly, explored and investigated. When given boundaries and a set time frame, it is amazing what children of all ages and ability can come up with. Forest School sessions undoubtedly stimulate creativity and imagination. Forest School also allows a range of management approaches, such as pupils working in groups, pairs or even individually. Pupils subsequently become more adept at listening to and interacting with each other.

We have found this in Fairview but research also backs up our reality, with Murray in 'Forest Schools Evaluation Project: A Study in Wales' stating:
-Forest School increases the self esteem and self confidence of individuals who take part
-Forest School improves an individual's ability to work co-operatively and increases their awareness of others
-Forest School counters a lack of motivation and negative attitude towards work.
(Murray, 2004)

The Department of Education in Northern Ireland supports the value of outdoor learning and how it can potentially enrich the curriculum. They believe that every young person should experience the world beyond the classroom as an essential part of learning and personal development, whatever their age ability or circumstances. They do make it clear, though, that all outdoor lessons have a clear objective. We ensure this in Fairview and this has made all our Forest School sessions purposeful.

Humes (2011) states that Forest School is one of the few projects that truly integrates all elements of the NI Curriculum. When viewing the Big Picture of the Curriculum at Key Stages 1 and 2, the Forest School programme can apply to a large number of areas within the curriculum. Being part of NI Forest School for so many years has been of great benefit to Fairview, far beyond the programme itself. It has been a great link with the community and has given us a direct link to our local council. We have now been involved in three Council Green Flags, in the Sixmilewater Park and in Rashee and Ballyclare Cemeteries. At a time when the thirst for outdoor learning is growing across Primary Schools in Northern Ireland, we are proud to be associated with the programme already and are happy to pronounce the many benefits it brings to our school, pupils and community.