At Queen’s, we give our pupils lots of opportunities to reconnect with the outdoor world beyond the classroom, boosting environmental stewardship, academic learning and personal development. Giving our girls access to natural experiences that they feel ownership and responsibility for, promotes a greater affinity and consciousness for a world that needs consideration and preservation.
Our Forest Days have been as popular as ever this year, with all the girls fully embracing the experience. Year 1 hunted for mini-beasts, finding lots of wood lice, centipedes, spiders, slugs and snails too. They loved seeing them up close through a magnifying glass lid! They then used some very messy clay to sculpt hedgehogs, creating homes for them under the trees.
Year 2 got also got creative with clay, creating mud creatures amongst the trees. They loved getting messy and washing off with the hose afterwards! They also enjoyed bug hunting with the pooters.
Teamwork was the order of the day for Years 3 and 4 as the girls were tasked with building a shelter using ten sticks, ropes and two sheets of tarpaulin. They then tested whether their constructions would provide suitable shelter to protect them from Miss Carmody's hosepipe!
Year 6 worked in teams to design and build a swing for a ‘baby’ using natural resources. They tested and improved their prototypes, with some designs proving more successful than others! They also built giant ‘marble runs’ to transport netballs over longer distances.
No Forest Day would be complete of course without the obligatory campfire and toasting marshmallows to make s’mores. A well deserved treat after all their hard work!
Providing outdoor learning opportunities is part of the fabric that makes up the curriculum at the The Queen’s Lower School. Our Forest Days and Beach School allows teachers and pupils to explore the interdependence of people, beaches and forests, and the vital role they play in sustaining our environment. It also helps the girls develop many skills that are hard to teach in the classroom. It encourages them to be active, assess situations, take risks and make decisions, with lots of activities to develop both fine and gross motor skills. The girls learn to be self-sufficient and take care of themselves, which boosts their confidence and self-esteem. Through trial and error they learn to deal with failure and develop the resilience: a skill critical in and outside the classroom.
