
Forest School- Parkdale Pines
Parkdale Pines is the newest development at Parkdale. Parkdale Pines gives our children the opportunity to continue and expand their learning outdoors. Encouraging them to explore and develop their knowledge of nature and living things, exploring and most of all having fun! It is also a chance to enhance the teaching of other subjects in the curriculum so learning is not confined to a classroom indoors but extended in one outside! Parkdale Pines currently has a magical cabin with a fire pit, wonderful trees of all ages that we can watch flourish and grow from our new observation hut!
There is still more development planned as we continue our Parkdale Pines adventure… so stayed tuned to see what happens next!
What is Forest School?
Forest School is a child-centred inspirational learning process, that offers opportunities for holistic growth through regular sessions. It is a long-term programme that supports play, exploration and supported risk taking. Each class has a timetabled slot each week to enable this to be possible. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.
The process helps and facilitates more than knowledge-gathering, it helps learners develop socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually. It creates a safe, non-judgemental nurturing environment for learners to try stuff out and take risks. Forest School inspires a deep and meaningful connection to the world and an understanding of how a learner fits within it. Our approach to risk means that learners constantly expand on their abilities by solving real-world issues, building self-belief and resilience. We believe that risk is more than just potential for physical harm, but a more holistic thing, there are risks in everything we do, and we grow by overcoming them. Forest School therefore, helps participants to become, healthy, resilient, creative and independent learners.
If you would like to learn more please visit The Forest School Association website and watch this short video.
Parkdale Pines Adventures

Year 3 Parent Open Event – Making Bird Feeders
Thank you to all the parents who came for our open event last term. We had a fabulous hour creating lots of home made natural bird feeders that we then took into Parkdale Pines for our feathered friends. We are hoping the feeders will encourage the birds to...

Stone Age Day in Year 1
Yesterday we had an amazing day in the Stone Age in Year 1. We looked at an AR model of Skara Brae, then we lit a fire and shared a lovely story “Stone Age Boy”. We enjoyed eating a hunter/gatherer snack of berries and then used salt dough to make some Stone Age...

Y5 Sketching in Forest School
Today, as part of their Forest School session, pupils in 5 Oak sketched a range of plants and trees in preparation for their upcoming Art and DT project. It was a great opportunity for pupils to take inspiration from the natural environment and to enjoy the Spring...