Outdoor Education for Home Educated Children
Holistic. Accessible. Regenerative. Education
Our home ed workshops run on Monday afternoons at Hazel Wood near Mitcheldean.
Our Outdoor Education & Forest School Workshops for Home Educating children restart on 2nd June 2025 for children aged 4-11 years. These workshops will run on Mondays during term time and where possible will continue to run through school holidays. 12:15-3:00pm at Hazel Wood, Jubilee road, Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, GL17 0EE. Bursary places are available for families on low incomes.
Run by Sarah, our Education Lead. Sarah has a decade of experience in primary teaching and is a qualified Level 3 Forest School Leader.
Our home ed forest school workshops aim to provide varied, practical learning opportunities while adhering to the learner-led ethos of forest school. This means that, although educational activities are planned and resourced, the children may or may not choose to participate in the activity. They also may use the resources in their own innovative way and so learn something completely different from what I had planned! In this way I am not so much a teacher as a facilitator.
Each week there will be activities (games, crafts, scavenger hunts etc) that link to the primary National Curriculum. These activities will be varied in order to cater for different learning styles and can be tailored to meet the interests of the children attending. Forest School offers hands-on experiential opportunities to develop learners in an holistic way through supported risk taking. As part of each session, the children will reflect on what they enjoyed and what they would like to do more of – in this way they are involved in planning future sessions themselves.
My philosophy of learning is that if you teach a child a fact then they may or may not remember that fact but if you teach them a skill (or better yet scaffold them to develop it themselves) then you are equipping them with the means of discovering their own facts.
I believe that children of all ages, not just the younger ones, learn best through exploration and discovery – otherwise known as play. My aim in our home ed sessions is to provide the resources, space and time with which the children are able to form their own learning.
You can book individual sessions or a 6 week block. Planning for each 6 week block of sessions will be available prior to booking.
Our workshops include whittling, fire lighting, den building, cooking popcorn and marshmallows on the fire and other bushcraft skills. Art and crafts, such as painting and sculpting with clay. Willow crafts, wood crafts and other traditional woodland crafts. Group circle and group games. We will provide drinks, please bring a packed lunch.
Please subscribe to our mailing list (at the bottom of the page) to be the first to hear when booking opens for a new block, and to find out what else we re doing.
Forest School Principles
Forest School is an atmosphere created by community within the woodland, facilitated by Forest School trained professionals. Forest School is designed to build confidence, self-esteem and emotional resilience. Forest School works brilliantly with learners who are anxious or have low self-esteem, and can help others find their voice. It creates a positive road to mental well-being, through understanding problems and working them through to solutions. This resilience is so important especially as mental health problems in both children and adults are increasing.
You can read more about Forest School and it's 6 core principles on our Forest School page.