All children at Valley Hill have the chance to venture out into our outdoor classroom in our woodland area and learn from nature while being in nature.

Children are free to direct their own learning through their discovery play, with the adults joining in alongside, facilitating their learning.

We take children out regularly to our forest school, where we offer them a rich variety of activities and the sense of independence which in turn develops confidence, self-belief, enthusiasm, communication, problem-solving skills and emotional well-being. Forest School touches on every area of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Children are inspired to explore and investigate nature entering into a certain amount of “risky play”.

Our team regularly observe their key children and know their abilities and next steps (targets) they use this, information from families and their knowledge of children’s interests to support them in their learning during the child lead forest sessions. Forest school enables children to experience the awe and wonder of nature.