Save our Forest School – St Anne’s Primary, South Gloucestershire

Our Forest school is disappearing and we would really, really like it back! Please help us!

We have 3 great forest school teachers who are employed to deliver forest school, during curriculum time, to every child in the school. Our school budget only has enough money to fund the forest school until December!

We need £12,500 to keep our forest school until at least the end of this school year.

Why do we need our forest school time?

1. Building confidence and independence

Building dens and using tools are just some of the activities that instil children with confidence and a sense of independence

“Children feel empowered as they learn more about their own natural environment,”

2. Feeling Empathy for others and nature

Working as a team in a natural setting bonds children as a group. It also makes them aware of the need to care for each other and for the environment.

3. Physical fitness

Running around and climbing trees develops muscle strength, aerobic fitness, and coordination.

4. Opportunity to be outdoors

With the majority of the school day indoors and the nights getting darker, children are less able to get outdoors in the fresh air and in the sunlight (even if it is through the clouds!)

5. Improved mental health

Today’s children are experiencing increased stress caused by a range of pressures, from school exams to social media. Giving children the opportunity to have time away from these pressures is important for their mental well-being.

6. Exposure to manageable risk

At Forest School, children can run and make a noise, get their hands dirty and experience manageable risk, which is essential for healthy child development, through activities such as supervised fire building and cooking.

7. Better sleep and mood

Children – and adults – sleep more deeply after either playing outside or going for a long walk, and mood lifts just from breathing in a few lungfuls of fresh air.

8. Learning about spiritual meaning

Outside the confines of four walls, without the distractions of electronic devices and excessive supervision, children can move, explore and discover at their own pace, connecting to the natural world – a place not created by man, that had deep spiritual meaning for our ancestors.

Source adapted from an article by Lisa Salmon, June 2018 for BT lifestyle.

Thank you for reading this far and we hope you choose to support us in some way, financially or by sharing our cause.