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Lunchtime play at Brookburn Primary School, Chorlton won’t be the same again! Children now have an amazing natural playground to enjoy – there are great climbing trees, lots of natural building materials, a dry stream bed, edible hedge, willow tepees and a mud kitchen. The ‘Den’ was designed by May Molteno and built by a really hardworking team of parent volunteers who were led and trained by Andrew Sheridan. The Den is already loved by the kids and staff.
A wonderful festival to celebrate the parks 100th birthday and its official reopening after a major programme of restoration funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Oldham Council. The sun shone and over 2500 people packed the park to seek out gorillas and boggarts; be thrilled by tight rope walkers and puppeteers; go home with painted faces and wearing willow crowns and enjoy a one man band, a traditional brass band and the evening finale by Biggles Band!
Our lovely colleagues Steve and Becca recently spent a week at Wicksteed Park in Northamptonshire, interviewing people about what they’d like to see going on in the park.
Here are some photos Steve took of the stall, which was designed specifically for this piece of work. We used our new stripey sun tent, a blackboard sign, an easel displaying ideas for activities, and bunting made by printing images onto fabric.
Recently we organised and ran a Forest Schools Seminar on behalf of Red Rose Forest. 40 participants joined us on a warm March day to find out more about forest schools through listening to speakers, taking part in workshops, and having a go at hands-on activities.
For our team, the morning started at 7.30am, unloading our cars that were full of large branches, bags of leaves, tablecloths, and a lot of mismatched vintage crockery.
In a little under two hours, we transformed the church hall:
Complete with woodland scene, including a twiggy den…
Everyone was greeted, signed in, and given lots of hot tea and coffee and pancakes.
Susannah Podmore, the Forestry Commission’s Forest Education Initiative Coordinator gave the opening keynote speech. She spoke about forest schools and education, what they are, why they work, and what’s going on nationally.
Next, everyone split up into different workshops led by experienced forest schools practitioners. Workshops covered delivering forest schools in public woodland, the benefits of woodlands as a learning environment, forest education in schools, and forest education for the under 5’s.
Whilst the workshops were going on, Steve and Charlie packed up their cars with a picnic lunch, and headed off to Wythenshawe Park to set up for lunch.
The grass was covered with a large groundsheet, laid over with blankets, onto which the delicious picnic lunch was spread out.
Scrumptious sandwiches packed carefully into baskets, and tins of Spanish tortilla, stuffed vine leaves, and grilled aubergine topped with mozzarella – all made by Backs Deli.
Our picnic spot was encircled with strings of pretty bunting – a lovely welcome for our guests as they wandered across the park to eat their lunch. And what beautiful warm weather we had!
The lovely Anna, who filmed our Spaceshaper Promotion Event in February was on hand to film the day – we can’t wait to see the final film when it’s finished!
The afternoon workshops were all hands-on forest school activities – a chance for people to try out forest education first hand!
There was a workshop on delivering the curriculum in a wood:
Another on den making:
Lighting fires and cooking outdoors:
And using ropes to tie knots and build bridges:
If you are interested in attending future Forest Schools workshops or events, or if you’d like help planning an event, please contact us at hello@pathwaysconsultancy.co.uk.
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