We run full day forest school sessions for children aged five upwards through the school holidays, and during term-time we work with schools on flexi-school programs.

At the drop off and pick up point we'll assemble the group for the day, and after saying bye to the parents we get into a circle, play a name game or two to introduce ourselves, and walk to the forest school site together. Getting to the forest school site is usually a 10 minute easy walk, and children often enjoy helping carry the kit which is usually in a trolley. We play transition games as we travel to and from the site which helps everyone get to know everyone else, and recognise natural landmarks along the way.

Once we arrive at the forest school site we agree and make a camp area for keeping our bags dry, and make sure everyone is familiar with different areas of the woods, such as the fire area, toilet tent and hand washing area, and the edges of the play space. We have a range of games and tried and tested ways of introducing the children to the safety and hygiene routines so that the boundaries of how we operate through the session are established with confidence from the start. During this introductory part of the session, we will also let the children know about any planned activities for the day, and the timings of snacks and lunch.

The forest school sites we use are big enough for participants to be out of eyeline of the base camp, and parents should know that unsupervised free play, out of the sight of adults, is highly valued within all forest school settings. This type of play does not take up the whole session, and the spaces we operate in do allow for it. We use a wolf howl, or an agreed call to call children back to camp, and often we will practise responding to this call through a game at the start of the sessions. Sometimes we also use an emergency whistle. We establish what we’re using at the start of each session depending on the nature of the group.

In the first part of the session, we will often ask children what they’d like to play, and have a group game together. We often set up hammocks pretty early in a session, and we usually set up tree swings and sometimes ladders and monkey bars if children are interested. At forest school we follow the interests of the children, and bring simple forest school kit including ropes, hammocks, hand tools and other play triggers to support children's play. Some of our most memorable sessions involve minimal kit, and we love creating imaginary worlds, games, dens and beings with natural resources.

If there’s interest, we tend to run fire lighting activities right before lunchtime so that we can have a fire during lunch, and we’ll keep that going through the afternoon for cooking a snack later. We encourage everyone to eat together at lunchtime, and we tend to make sure everyone has eaten something during a session as energy levels can get low quickly outside, especially in the winter months. Day-long sessions often finish about three, and we’ll pack up our kit with the children, have a closing circle to share any reflections on the day and to find out what we might need to bring to support activities on the next session. We travel back to the meeting point where the parents are, again, using games and natural landmarks as we go.

We rephrase this question by asking "is my child ready for Forest School?"

Our guidance age range is 5 - 11. It’s also useful to think about if forest school is the right fit for your child.

To find the answer, here are some additional questions we ask parents to get a sense of their child’s experience of spending hours outside in the woods.

• "Has your child ever attended an outdoor kindergarten?” if they have been to outdoor kindergarten for a couple days a week over the course of a few months, they will be well accustomed to spending hours outside in all weathers and this is fantastic physical preparation for joining Forest School.

• "How much time do they spend outside during a week? Do they like going on walks and playing outside?" This usually helps us get an idea of how accustomed your child is to being outside, and what their fitness and tolerance for less-mild weather will be.

If your answer to this is "not very much" please don't let that put you off bringing them along, if you feel it's right for them. We work with many children who haven't been out much, and we find they usually settle into things over the course of the weeks they're with us. Being outside is natural for all of us, and our bodies adapt well if we’ve got decent packed lunches and a bit of shelter when the weathers' wet.

Does your child know how to pee outside?

We require children are able to go for a wild pee themselves with no adult assistance and have a toilet system for wild pees, in a specific allocated area of the woods.

Our leaders can't assist every child in the toilet or teach them how to wild pee, so they need to be able to go themselves.

However, this is not a deal breaker, if your child is happy to use a pop-up tent to go to the toilet, whether that's number one or number two's, there is always a toilet tent with a camping toilet available on site.

We recommend high-energy food such as whole grain breads and pasta, cheese and dried fruit and nuts, raw veggies, and anything else that will give your child long lasting energy (tattie scones anyone?!).

We allow peanut butter and peanuts in all sessions unless we get a notification of an allergy. All food allergy information is collected in the medical media consent form that we send you after booking.

Many children bring thermal food flasks with hot food such as pasta, rice and soups even in summer months to help them stock up on energy for playing in the woods for long periods of time.

For children who are not used to being outside for 5 hours a day, please bear in mind it's likely their bodies will need more food than usual to regulate and adapt to their new environment.

We often cook a snack on the fire during sessions so children have the opportunity to get some experience of cooking on the fire. However, this is not replacement for lunch.

June - July - August

Long cotton trousers or leggings. They can wear shorts if they want but wearing shorts puts children at greater risk of being bitten by ticks which sometimes carry disease. Please be aware there are ticks in Pollok Country Park and you can find more info about ticks here.

Sturdy waterproof shoes that they don't mind getting muddy. For example, strong waterproof shoes, hiking boots or wellies are recommended year round. In summer, when it's exceptionally dry, children do come in trainers, but, be warned, any sneakers needing to be kept fresh should be left at home.

At least two layers under a waterproof jacket. For example, a long sleeve cotton shirt and  a a light cotton jumper either on or in their bag

Waterproof jacket and trousers can be worn or carried in their bag, but they should bring them every day, just in case the weather turns. Waterproofs are great on windy days too as they can block the wind from reaching our skin. Strong wind is common in Scotland and we use more energy keeping warm in wind, even in summer.

From September until May (this is Scotland afterall)

Think LAYERS! Priority for clothes in winter should be layering thin natural fibre longsleeve tees, jumpers and leggings.

We recommend two layers on the legs. For example, at least one cotton/wool blend layer underneath waterproof trousers as a bare minimum. Waterproof trousers cut the wind down which can really help us keep that part of our body warm.

For top layers we usually recommend three layers at least underneath the waterproof jacket. For example, long sleeve tee, short sleeve tee, wooly jumper or fleece and waterproof, padded/insulated coat on top. Second-hand ski or snowboard jackets are useful, and if you cant get those, a fleece jacket over their woolly jumper, plus a thin waterproof will do.

Hats. When the temperature dips below 5 degrees, we have been known to wear double hats at forest school. We lose a lot of heat off the top of our head and a hat can help us maintain our body heat really well in winter.

Gloves are useful however we work with our hands a lot in forest school, and find cutting the tips off some gloves can be a good way to keep active hands warm. Fingerless gloves for children who especially enjoy the small woodcraft work with us.

Thick socks or double up?

The debate rages. Two pairs of thin cotton socks a inside boots an often provide more insulation than one pair of thick socks, the key is avoiding squeezing the feet with too much padding that the blood can't circulate.

We tend to treat Spring or April sessions as winter months in terms of clothing - let's face it, this is Scotland.

If we get too hot for any reason we can always take off a layer to cool down but we usually find we need to put them back on fairly quickly. We often have heavy rain showers during these months so waterproof trousers and waterproof jacket are essential.

Layers, layers, layers!!! A vest under multiple layers will probably do more heat capture than a thick winter coat that restricts movement. Cotton vests or if you can manage it the wool and merino vests will do the most heat retention for your child in winter.

Any kind of wool jumper is going to be a better insulator than polyester, but a polyester micro fleece over a woolly jumper is an ideal layer combination for winter sessions.

Under 5 degrees, we need to be wearing at least 5 layers before we put on our coats, and double hats.

You can always take a layer off if you don’t need it so it’s batter to have too many layers than not enough.

Hopefully we’ve covered all the important info but if there’s anything else you have questions about please do get in touch. You can email us at:
hello@glasgowforestschool.co.uk