Environmental Education, with the Berkeley Reafforestation Trust
The Marks Family Charitable Trust has a long built partnership with the Berkeley Reafforestation Trust, a charity now directed towards environmental education for young people in the UK. The Berkeley Reafforestation Trust seeks to foster children’s understanding, appreciation and experience of the natural world through the medium of Forest School in the UK.
Forest School
Forest School is an inspirational programme that offers children, young people and adults regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence through hands-on learning in a woodland environment. It addresses the stresses in society that result from ever-decreasing contact with the natural world.
The Forest School movement started off in Britain in the mid-1990s and is based on Scandinavian practice where it is mainstream in schools. Children’s contact with nature is considered to be of the greatest importance to their healthy development, both psychologically and physically, and is backed up by a huge body of research.
Core characteristics for children in Forest School include:
Emphasis on self help
Sustainability
Education through experience of the natural world
Key features include:
The use of woodland or other outdoor settings
A high ratio of adults (including trained practitioners) to pupils
Learning through play and discovery that can be linked to National Curriculum and Foundation Stage objectives
Regular time spent in the same outside space over a significant period of time
Forest School Sites
The Trust is now focussing on helping develop Forest School sites within school grounds. Such schools must still have sufficient outdoors space albeit often on a limited scale. They have also to be schools which by definition have no access to suitable alternative sites within close reach and which lack the resources necessary for a minibus and the extra time and staffing requirements such school outings involve.
We have an ongoing programme of developing several substantial sites together with a leading landscape company which has donated labour, many of the materials and design inputs pro bono. Less extensive sites have also been created or improved in a number of other schools with more coming on stream all the while. The sites typically incorporate woodland trees and shrubs, fruit trees, a small pond, fire circle, mud kitchen, willows for craftwork, wood for building huts, large logs, bug houses and the rest! Children are taught to use sharp tools and fire responsibly, to discover ways of occupying themselves without resort to toys and screens. It’s a different world at Forest School and almost all children love it! Staff report on the calming effect of Forest School – it is most unusual for there to be any discipline problems on site. Furthermore, children who may struggle in the classroom often flourish in this different and less stressful environment with the knock-on effect of improving their confidence and self-esteem generally.
Recent work, in partnership with The Marks Family Charitable Trust
In 2019, the The Berkeley Reafforestation Trust worked with schools in Oxford, Suffolk, Woolwich and near Cheltenham to create forest schools. Forest Schools have been built and completed in conjunction with a local landscaping partner, so as to jointly fund development. This included primary schools in areas which have suffered from the loss of local industry, greatly impacting families and schools nearby. In some cases the Forest Schools have replaced bare ground, with no current purpose.
Sites are now also being used as a venue for training students and staff from nearby Universities, who volunteer to do community work in the locality. In Oxford, this has been organised through the Oxford University Hub. In 2020, The Berkeley Reafforestation Trust is hoping to forge links with a Forestry company who may help with pro bono work in Dorset schools should suitable sites emerge. Active discussions are currently underway.
