Forest School

The Parkside Forest School Programme

At Parkside, we try to get outdoors as much as possible!  We are lucky to have a fantastic outside environment.  We have woods with a woodland trail – look out for the mini-beast hotel, woodwork bench, tree swings, the log pile house, our hand-made shelters and our fire circle.  We love tending to the animals in our very own School Farm.  

We have a lovely pond where we enjoy pond dipping and can spot pond-skaters, dragonflies, lilies and even frogs and newts in the summer.  We have a large field, edged with trees and wildlife - pheasants and squirrels included!   Preschool and Reception class also have their very own outdoor areas, mud kitchens and hedgehog houses and bird feeders.  

We were one of the first schools in the County to introduce Forest School and to train up teachers to be Level 3 qualified Forest School Leaders.  We are so pleased to continue to offer each child in the school a block of Forest School sessions each academic year.  Each year group has their sessions at a different time of the year so, as the children progress from Reception to Year 6, they will have experienced sessions in each season. The classes are split in half so that the maximum group size is 15; this significantly changes and improves the dynamic of the session and therefore the quality of the nature experience each child has.