Wellbeing Wednesday – Forest School

Our first sessions after Christmas focused on confidence, social interactions and trying new things. The older group began by finding an object which either represented something from over Christmas or a New Year’s resolution or aim for 2024. After sharing why they’d chosen this item and what it represented, pupils then hid it and created a trail for others to follow. Pupils had to think about the starting point, how people would be guided through the trail using different symbols and where to hide their object. Once completed, everyone took it in turns to complete each other’s trails and at the end the group reviewed and reflected on the session. The second group worked with our school goats – Nigel and Doughnut. First of all, we began by talking about certain safety aspects when working with animals and then met them by approaching them and giving them a stroke. Once goats and children were comfortable, we gave Nigel and Doughnut a hair brush before taking them for a walk around our stone circle. It was really impressive that all pupils took turns in walking them and they thoroughly loved the opportunity of being hands on with the goats!