Forest School at Ascot Heath
Our Forest School leader is Miss Ringrose
Our Vision
Our vision is to have a school where the benefits of regular time outdoors are valued and appreciated, and outdoor learning, play and connection with nature are recognised as fundamental parts of education, at every stage, for every child.
For each subject we have created a progression of skills and knowledge document. You can view the Forest School documents by clicking on the title below:
Summer Term 2026
We’ve been so busy at Forest School this term, the summer term seems to have flown by. We had plenty of rain in the spring term which helped to get our herb garden and the plants and bulbs that we planted in the spring off to a great start and we now have a whole host of strawberries and apples to share as well as a bloom of beautiful flowers.
The warmer weather had us spotting lots more of the creatures that live in the wild garden including butterflies, ladybirds and even green shield bugs, which the children were fascinated by. We have learnt the names of the beautiful wild flowers that have appeared after we scattered the seeds earlier in the year and shaded ourselves under the canopy of our lovely blossom tree, which is now in full leaf and which the children have nicknamed the ‘big umbrella’.
We have tried our hand at whittling and made our own wands and pirate buddy sticks. We have also learnt to identify woods which are bendy and can easily be made into different shapes and creations, such as willow and hazel.
With all the hot weather, we have not had any need for fire lighting and instead we made our own outdoor showers to help us cool off!
There has been a lot of giggling in the mud kitchen with our muddy ‘ice cream’ creations – delicacies such as mud sorbet and rocky road mud ice cream - and the children also enjoyed some water play making their own potions and nature perfumes.
Children have tried different arts and crafts using nature, including Japanese flower printing technique of hapazoma. They have had time to play and relax in our peaceful corner of the garden known as 'Hammock Heights' and have really enjoyed the opportunity to be outside and immerse themselves in nature during the warmer weather. Have a lovely summer everyone!
SPRING TERM 2026
In Forest School this term, we have started our ' Forest School Fridays' where all of Early Years are outside exploring the woodland area whatever the weather and even if they are not taking part in Forest School activities that week.
Some of our sessions this term have been linked to the different celebrations taking place including the Lunar New Year, Pancake day and Valentines day, Mother’s day, World Book day and Easter, as well as including some outdoor experiments during science week, such as experimenting with floating and sinking and creating our won volcanoes.
We started off the new year by making some new year's resolutions based on how to look after nature. We came up with a whole list of ideas of ways in which we could help nature thrive and agreed to start by helping out the birds over the coming cold months. We learnt how to build our own bird’s nests, ensuring they could withstand the ‘egg test’ of keeping a real egg safe and we made a bird café and bird park by learning how to tie simple knots to tie together sticks to make swings and perches for the birds to settle on.
We celebrated Lunar New Year by trying out some Chinese writing using our own ink that we made from mud and berries and we made chocolate banana boats on the fire. Pancake day saw us making pancakes on the fire and tossing our own pancakes in the mud kitchen!
Together we have noticed how winter has slowly turned to spring by recognising changes in the weather and the plants and creatures that have started to return to the wild garden.
Other activities have included planting seeds and bulbs, scavenger hunts, games and crafts and also experiments during British Science week, which involved building and exploding our own volcanoes and looking at how salt affects ice by driving toy cars on sheets of ice.
World Book Day saw the children making their own stick men and women, making porridge for the three bears in the mud kitchen and creating their own teddy bears’ picnics. A lot of fun has been had by all!