Practitioners’ perspectives on children’s engagement in Forest School

Abstract

Forest school is a pedagogical practice widely used in the UK, and increasingly in other parts of the world. This paper contributes to the growing body of research on forest school by focussing on how children engage with and respond to forest school. It draws on practitioners’ experience of working with children to examine their perspectives on how children react to forest school. While practitioners felt the majority of children enjoyed forest school, they identified six specific groups of children who benefit. The findings are related to existing research to explore how the learning environment enables children to experience individual learning journeys at forest school.