Forest School for wellbeing: supporting children and young people with social and emotional needs ‌This booklet is aimed at school staff and practitioners and draws on three years of the Breeze Forest School project and research.  It introduces the project, Forest School and existing research evidence,  before giving practical guidance on using Forest School to impact on children and young people's wellbeing and a guide to measuring impact using a 'theory of change' approach.  Case studies, including a primary and secondary example, give insights in to how the project was enacted and benefited individuals. ‌‌‌

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Breeze was led by Scotswood Natural Community Garden (SNCG), a small independent charity, and was funded by the Wellesley Trust Fund at the Community Foundation and St James’s Place Foundation. The project aimed to use the Forest School approach in order to improve the emotional wellbeing of children and young people.

Impacting on young people’s emotional wellbeing through Forest School: The Breeze Project, pilot year considers the affordances and constraints experienced in the project and makes recommendations for schools and practitioners wishing to use the Forest School approach in order to impact upon the wellbeing of children and young people.

 

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This review is based on evidence from four primary and first schools in North-East England, each of which has used the opportunities offered by Creative Partnerships to develop learning experiences in their school grounds.

The motivations for initiating the work; the nature of learning; the use of the school environment and the relationships have been unique to each school, as have the physical, cognitive and affective outcomes.

This publication explores the themes that have emerged (PDF: 1.2MB) across the case studies and illustrates them with evidence from each school.

This booklet is made up of a collection of blog posts written by Rachel Lofthouse between March 2015 and June 2016 (PDF: 1.4MB).

These are presented here as eight think-pieces.

Following each one there are two or three questions which you may find helpful to ask yourself, your colleagues and the leadership team of the school, college or other organisation in which you work.

The core educational stance underpinning this publication is the belief that workplaces can be sites of learning, and that professional learning in the workplace is critical to building a workforce that is:

• sustainable
• resilient
• creative
• adaptable
• motivated

The objective of this publication is to assist practitioners and researchers to undertake project development, implementation and evaluation using theory of change2.2MB).

This is applicable to a wide range of domains including education, public health, social care, community work, youth work, the arts and more.

This BERA/RSA research report was commissioned to fill a gap in their enquiry into research and the teaching profession.

In this report we focused on teacher voice - offering insights into how teachers feel and learn from engagement in and with research.

There are key lessons here for those who aim to develop greater links between research and teaching.

The objective of this publication is to assist practitioners and researchers to do research in a creative way with the underlying approach of researching with rather than on people.

The publication (PDF: 2.2MB) provides a short rationale about why such an approach is important but then focuses very much on the ‘how to’, with practical examples and suggestions, and links to further reading.

The coaching guide for schools became a top downloaded resource when it was published by the old National College of School Leadership and still has currency today.

It offers school leaders and coaches practical advice based on research evidence to support the establishment of coaching for teaching development (PDF: 740KB).

This review questioned what could be achieved via the UK government's decision to implement the BSF programme, which set out to renew every secondary school in the country.

It identified common themes in the aspects which initiate and then influence school building programmes (PDF: 2.2MB), and it related these to the outcomes and consequences of these past waves of building.

The Guide to Community Curriculum Making was funded by the ESRC Impact Acceleration Fund and was a collaboration between CfLaT researchers, other Newcastle University staff with a penchant for engaging with schools, a wide array of community partners and teachers in schools.  It provides guidance on how and why engaging curriculum projects can be developed by schools and communities working together whilst still meeting external targets.  Thanks to all who contributed at meetings, events and through interviews and exemplification.

Thinking it through: Curriculum in the local context (PDF: 4.0MB)