Ferncumbe CE Primary School Forest School and RE

Ferncumbe CE Primary School, Forest School and RE Aim: to provide numerous practical and inspiring ideas for links between classroom RE and Forest School work for pupils 4 -11

Ferncumbe CE Primary School decided to do ‘RE in the Forest’ for all year groups. We planned a programme of work to enable creative, imaginative RE – lots of religion happens out of doors (Jesus on the mountain, the Buddha under the tree, Moses by the waterside). This picture shows the short walk from school to Forest.

The ‘forest’ is a small wooded spinney across this field which the landowner allows the school to use. Your outdoor RE can even take place in the school grounds, of course – but a little bit of forest is great. What can you imagine getting pupils to do?

The ‘forest RE programme’ is for 4 -11 s, who all do half a term of forest RE each year. Very exciting.

There are lots of trees, twigs, stone, mud, grass, undergrowth and all sorts of things to use creatively when you look + think. It’s all about the ideas.

Divali in the forest, with marshmallows “Our 7 year olds have just completed a learning journey based on ‘Festivals of Light’ and most of their learning was play based giving the children the opportunity to play with and explore stories, cookery, art and crafts and poetry. As with all outstanding personalised learning, which I see as a tree, the staff plan the ‘trunk’ of the tree, which is displayed for children to see, and the children are encouraged to take the learning off into their own ‘branches’. The children planned independently a special celebration to be shared with parents, carers and friends which was to be held in the meadow we use. It’s an acre and three quarters of meadow, woods and stream. The Meadow was lit with individually designed diva lamps with a bonfire, toasted marshmallows and hot chocolate with poetry readings linked to movement. I love it when RE is shared with the community in this way when the power of nature and aesthetic experience linked to the play of the children bring us all together in a very special way which more formal RE would never do. ”

Ten evil heads: 10 pupils from Y 4 stand behind each of 10 trees announcing ‘I am the evil demon Ravana, come to capture beautiful Sita. ’ Reception pupils enjoy the drama that follows. Problem solving – a design challenge for the children – can you design and make diva lamps for the woods that will show Sita’s way home? Make a winding path to the den?

Ten evil heads: 10 pupils from Y 4 stand behind each of 10 trees announcing ‘I am the evil demon Ravana, come to capture beautiful Sita. ’ Reception pupils enjoy the drama that follows: get Yr 4 to act out the Divali story in the forest for younger children.

The seating area is great for thinking, storytelling, pair and share, planning and also for burning stuff…

The ‘Burning Bush’ lesson was the most exciting of the year, with dramatic story telling and real flames (and H&S Risk assessment of course). Pupils explored the idea of God speaking to humans, setting people free, in the natural environment.

100 people – made of sticks and string – to model the fact that we live in a very unequal world. 10 of them have almost all the money, 90 have almost nothing. What would happen? What should happen? And in the real world? Whole class speedy teamwork project: biodegradable string, and make 100 stick

If the whole world was a village of 100 people. . . • This construct can be used to understand a lot about distributions (connects to Geography). Turn the figures into guessing games – e. g. using the ‘Jelly Babies’ Power. Point. Relate to ‘World Woodie Village’, which will be created in Forest • In religion, 34 would be Christians, and 21 Muslim, 16 Hindu, 14 non-religious and 7 Buddhists. There would be 4 atheists and the other four people stand for lots of smaller groups of believers. • In money, imagine the village has £ 1000. 10 of the 100 people in the world village would own 85% of this. Perhaps each of these ten would have £ 85 of the money for themselves. The other 90 people would have to share just 15% of the money. They’d have an average of 18 pence each. Is that fair? Why not? What should be done? You might think it worth collecting 1000 pennies to illustrate this, or using 1000 leaves (collect and count at the start of the session – set three teams to collect 334 leaves each)

Choose something old, something fresh, something beautiful, something strange – consider how these things come to exist. Work on creation takes a more earthy perspective.

This example of making ‘Sukkah’ shelters, as in the Jewish festival of Sukkot, is not forest, but just outdoor RE – but making dens, what can be more fun?

Children had learned seven symbol sayings of Jesus in class: “I am the bread of life, water of life, light of the world, the good shepherd, the resurrection, the way, truth and life. 7 small groups created sculpture to express the ideas. Jesus said: “I am the door” What did he mean?

Children found out about the Muslim custom of ‘stoning the devil’ as a way of setting your intentions against bad behaviour and in favour of the good. They enjoyed stoning three trees! A long discussion about what things from inside ourselves we want to throw out was surprisingly deep.

After working on the Lord’s Prayer in the forest, children made these ‘prayer trees’ back in school, a leaf for every prayer the group could think of…

Some of this work seems ordinary and simple – it is, in one way. But it can transform your RE into something conceptled, not written, but deeply thought and roundly experienced. Pupils did a poetry activity about windows into your soul…

The aims of this programme include: • High quality, enjoyable RE lessons in school and in the forest for all pupils, centred on their own ideas, building their knowledge and skills; • Numerous opportunities for reflection and deep thinking through RE for every pupil; • A more creative RE for every child; • Linked work in RE and Forest that provides for opportunities for spiritual development (and other aspects of SMSCD); • Forest programmes that contribute to and are energised by learning about and learning from Christianity; • Forest programmes that link to and energise learning from Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religion; • Good links between SEAL and PSHE and RE in the Forest programmes; • RE that contributes to pupils’ general learning skills and attitudes, especially including thinking and problem solving skills and attitudes to do with self esteem, teamwork, co-operation, personal confidence.