11/08/2026
“Have I been doing Forest School for too long?”
That was genuinely what I was thinking at 11.25am, as I pulled yet another muddy saucepan out of the river after what had been a fairly difficult morning.
And then at 1pm, this happened.
A group of children sat silently on a jetty for fifteen minutes, and experienced a moment together I think they’ll always remember. They sat there, not because they were told to, and not because they were particularly ‘good’ at sitting still. In fact, around a third of this group have some kind of diagnosis which would say otherwise, and some are children who might usually be described as struggling to concentrate or engage.
Slowly, as they became quiet, the lake came alive.
Swallows. Buzzards. Moorhens. A heron. Dragonflies mating above the water and dipping down to lay their eggs.
Then, something BIG broke the surface…
Nobody moved.
It was one of those moments that reminded me exactly why I do this job.
I came home and wrote about it; about silence, attention, awe, and what can happen when instead of demanding that children concentrate, we give them something really worth concentrating on.
I think curiosity, awe and wonder, rather than discipline, are the doorways to authentic focus.
And perhaps we don’t need to teach children to care about nature at all, perhaps we just need to give them enough time and space to fall in love with it themselves.
Read the full blog ‘The Wonder of Silence’ here
It had been a difficult morning. Some children not getting on, a few scraped knees. 'Have I been doing forest school for too long?' I think to myself at 11.25am, as I pull yet another muddy saucepan out of the river.And then this moment happened, and I remembered my 'why'. 'Oh yes. That's why.' I th...
