The woods have been our classroom for 7 months now. We started our Forest School venture in August and have explored there weekly, bar a few weeks when things got a bit hectic with the Christmas play. You know how it is!
There are 12 of us, 10 pupils (P1-P6) and 2 members of staff, although we’ve also had 7 different visitors, including our Education Scotland inspector and Miss Teen Argyll (Galaxy)!
Priority is safety and comfort. The pupils are becoming proficient at putting up a tarpaulin shelter, using timber hitch and tension knots. They’re also pretty good at retrieving it from the trees on windy days! Teamwork is essential and they know their roles.

A typical day includes group work, creative tasks, sharing times, physical activities, time and space on our own and fun. We’ve had tree gymnastics, Forest Footy, Woodland Masterchef and a charcoal woodland gallery. There are twig stars hanging in the trees, an archaeological dig and mini houses created for the Little Folk. However it did take Teddy to come and find the Sneeze Dragon!

There are new things to be discovered every week. We’ll keep you posted and hopefully inspire you to ‘go down to the woods today’ or tell us about your adventures.

Finally a few comments from the pupils;

‘I made a book. ‘Secret Teddy’s Adventure’’ P1

‘I like collecting beech nuts in the bucket’ P1

‘It’s fun. We look at trees and leaves. We make wood shelters, play tig in the forest and have magic spots.’ P5

‘We build objects and carve wooden pegs. We also create shelters and put up tarpaulins. At the end of the day we sometimes have a fire or boil water for hot chocolate with a storm kettle. It’s absolutely awesome’ P6