The Nurture Reserve

It’s that time of year again where we take time to gather some of our favourite Autumn leaves and dip them in melted beeswax to preserve their beauty! We did this inside over the stove however this can also be done over the fire.

Thanks again to Emma for sharing this wonderful idea a few years ago!

Attention Restoration Theory was developed by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in the 1980s/90s. Their theory suggests that mental fatigue is caused by an excess of directed attention (e.g focusing hard in lessons writing or working with fixed attention on a problem or task) Kaplans suggested that by taking a break in nature you are exposing yourself to involuntary attention (e.g watching the clouds, listening to birdsong, walking in the woods) and this voluntary attention acts as a reset button to restore your mental energy and focus allowing you to continue with your tasks that involve directed attention.

So how can this work in practice? - Learners taking a break in nature or forest school can leave directed attention and begin to move towards a more involuntary attention mindset this often allows exposure to soft fascination such as leaves, waves clouds and trees! This ignites curiosity and restores their ability to focus. Breaks in nature are powerful!

How have you felt watching the waves? 🌊 Does it feel like a regulatory reset?

Today we made Conker necklaces by selecting conkers from a basket. We took it in turns to use the Conker clamp and used a palm drill to make a hole before choosing some coloured ribbon to thread them on. It was tricky at times but we persevered well!

Today we made apple crumble using locally grown apples from our village. We used peelers to remove the skin from the apples and chopped them before adding butter, brown sugar and cinnamon to the pan. We topped off the cooked apples with custard and a crumbled up digestive biscuit as our crumble!

Today we went to Seaham Beach to explore the beach and hunt for Sea glass. We found lots of different colours and had fun spotting and discovering some pirate glass.

Seaham and nearby Sunderland were home to glass making factories during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Pirate glass is Black sea glass that was originally part of very old black glass bottles. They appear to be smooth and stone like. You need a torch to shine through to see the true green colour of the glass.

Maybe I should do my Coastal School training! ?

Blackberry and Apple jam!

Tie dying with blackberries

OFSTED UPDATE

As you know in July we had a visit from Ofsted at our partnership school Lady Elizabeth Hastings in Thorp Arch.
Unusually the inspector visited us at forest school and I had a conversation with him about the importance of forest school within mainstream schools. Having been a primary school teacher I recognise the constraints of the curriculum and time out of the classroom is often unwelcome as it is seen as time away from curriculum objectives.

Forest school leaders are often given objectives and what should be a child led experience becomes less autonomous and Forest School becomes more like Outdoor learning or simply just learning outside.

At the Nurture Reserve I devised a progressive curriculum of key skills that we measure through outcomes. Children still have the freedom to design their own learning journey and the skills fit around these by a consistent cycle of observation and reflection. Recently we have been exploring natural foods in our woodland and it has been really exciting to see what the pupils have planned.

It was great to see Ofsted recognising what we are all about:

‘Forest School skilfully promotes pupils spiritual and moral development. It does this through expertly planned sequential learning’
Ofsted)

The school was rated Good with an Outstanding early years provision. The inspector said ‘more children should come to this school’ so if you are local please come along to the schools open mornings!