Schools Day promotes the Forest as an educational resource
On 2nd July Five Acres High School, Coleford, enthusiastically supported Foresters’ Forest by hosting a Schools Day event for local schools in the Forest of Dean.
The purpose of the event was to share how our Forest is a fantastic educational resource for our schools.
This was illustrated by schools presenting some of the project work they have completed, visiting sites in the Forest such as The Dean Heritage Centre, Hopewell Colliery, Clearwell Caves and Worcester Walk Community Project.
Foresters’ Forest Project Leaders and partner
organisations also explained how they can support schools and talked about their
involvement with the Foresters’ Forest National Lottery Heritage funded
programme.
Staff and pupils from Lydbrook School, Coalway Junior School
and Heart of the Forest School eloquently explained how they have engaged with
Foresters’ Forest projects as part of their learning. Lydbrook School has
worked closely with Foresters’ Forest to include the Forest’s heritage in its
school curriculum. In their recent Ofsted inspection report, mention of this
creative community engagement is praised.
We were also musically entertained by a wonderful performance from Five Acres High school choir.
Commenting on the event, Sue Middleton, Foresters’ Forest NLHF
Programme Manager said:
“This event has shown how much passion there is amongst our
schools for the heritage of our Forest. I look forward to more schools in the
area engaging with our ‘Working with Schools’ element of our programme, and to
making this day an annual event.
Vitally, Foresters’ Forest launched two significant, free, learning resources (pictured below) at Schools Day for all our local schools to use. Namely, a detailed Archaeology pack, containing an A4 teaching guide, CD and pottery artefacts gathered from the Forest of Dean. We also launched ‘Ranger in a Bag’ rucksack packs, developed with Forestry England, to enable teaching staff to take pupils out on activity based exploration and learning days in the Forest. There is an ‘Amazing Animals’ bag and a ‘Fantastic Forests’ bag, both jam-packed with activities for schools to experience.”
Our thanks go to everyone who made this event such a success.
