Students at Kingston University have been given the chance to experience the increasingly popular practice of forest schooling.

As part of the curriculum, PGCE students headed to the woodland grounds of the University's Kingston Hill campus, where they have the opportunity to work with local pupils from schools the university has partnerships with.

"One of inherent strengths of forest schooling lies in its ability to positively impact the mental health and wellbeing of not only young children but also students and adults," says Claire Jackson, PGCE primary course lead at Kingston University.

Forest schooling is the new approach to teaching, which promotes outdoor and child-led learning. It first originated in Scandinavia but is rapidly gaining popularity in the UK with over 10,000 schools operating across the country. 

The combination of the forest school approach and the standard curriculum is found to have a positive effect on children's social, cognitive, emotional, and physical skill development.

During their course, teacher training students begin with traditional in-class training, learning about the background and main philosophy of a forest school, before going outside into nature to get first-hand experience.

Through group and individual exercises, the students step into the role of children, actively participating in creative activities, engaging their senses, and embracing the freedom of not working towards the completion of a particular task – a characteristic intrinsic to traditional classroom-based learning activities.

The freedom to explore and engage with nature and the lack of any pressure of the classroom is at the heart of the forest school philosophy.

"Loads of communication takes place very naturally where children are automatically talking, sharing, and learning how to show empathy for others and just be kind to nature," points out Ms. Jackson.

"By engaging in forest schooling exercises students develop empathy, creativity, team building, and communication, which they then apply in their future work."