What was the situation?
All the young people had had issues at some time with adults in a position of perceived authority, teacher, carers or social workers. They expected to be told how to and how not to behave, to be told what to do and what to not do. Attending forest school gave them a different experience – this is not how forest school sessions are conducted, as they are learner centred.
What was the intervention?
At first the young people would either constantly ask permission to do things or try and do things unseen, it was unnerving for them to realise that they were expected to make decisions for themselves and that they were responsible for themselves. They enjoyed the freedom to explore and play but then struggled with the realisation that the adults were not there to do things for them. E.g. loved making rope swings during the 1st session, not happy that next time when they were expected to carry the ropes into the woods if they wanted to do this activity again.
What was the outcome?
We asked the young people to plan what they wanted to do at the beginning of the sessions. The answers at first were, don’t know or don’t care, they soon realised that we were not going to plan the session for them and rose to the challenge of organising their own time. Equally when they wanted to make a craft, create a project or build a structure they struggled when we would not do it for them, only demonstrating the skills they may need or talking through the problem solving process with them. Over the weeks it became apparent to them that the staff would always help them, but only if they asked for the help and explained the assistance they needed. At first this resulted in much frustration within them and many activities were left uncompleted.
The turning point for this was when it had been decided that they wanted to make bows and arrows. All started to look for suitable wood to make the bows, the young people discussed with staff which wood would be best for the project and went to find it. The young people watched as the staff demonstrated the knot skills needed and how the bow and arrows were constructed to successfully make them and started the game. By the end of the session all the young people had bows after helping each other. All were very proud of their achievements and realised the more effort they put in the greater the reward for themselves was.
