An exploratory study of preschool children at forest schools and traditional nurseries in Portugal and the UK


 This reflection on community-driven research in process is written from the perspective of graduate student co-researchers collaborating with Wabanaki community co-researchers on a pilot project involving a Wabanaki and a non-Indigenous organization. Three Nations Education Group Inc. (TNEGI) represents three Wabanaki schools and communities in Northeast Turtle Island. The Child and Nature Alliance of Canada (CNAC) offers a Forest and Nature School Practitioner Course (FNSPC) for educators seeking to operate forest schools. These diverse organizations have developed a pilot FNSPC training for a group of TNEGI educators, with the purpose of Indigenizing the FNSPC. This is necessary to address the Eurocentric forest and nature school practices in Canada, which often fail to recognize the herstories, presence, rights, and diversity of Indigenous Peoples and places. TNEGI educators envision a land-based pedagogy that centers Wabanaki perspectives and merges Indigenous and Western knowledges. In the FNSPC pilot, the co-researchers generated course changes as they progressed through the pilot, decolonizing the content and format as they went. Developing this Indigenized version of the FNSPC will have far-reaching implications for the CNAC Forest School ethos and teacher training delivery. This essay maps our collaborative efforts thus far in creating an ethical research space within this Indigenous/non-Indigenous research initiative and lays out intentions for the road ahead.

Over the past 25 years Forest School in the UK has been growing in popularity as part of a wider resurgence of interest in outdoor learning. A key driver behind this recurrence of interest has been a growing concern over the lack of child exposure to outdoor experiences and with the natural world and their ensuing nature-deficit disorder. This article considers Forest School as linked with the concept of nature connection that is the sensation of belonging to a wider natural community. This sense of belonging developed by being in nature can also be a key factor in promoting attachment and sense of place which in turn is associated with the promotion of health, wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviours. As such the origins towards achieving nature connection are a formal part of the Forest School Association’s (FSA 2016). Forest School principals, with growing research linking Forest School and nature connection as concomitant. Recent work has suggested that contact, emotion, meaning, compassion, and beauty are key pathways for the formation of nature connection and there is a strong need to better understand children’s nature connection in this context. Further, from the premise that what goes on in spaces and places is fundamentally linked to both social and spatial processes, this article also attempts to understand the spatialities of Forest School in order to frame the development of nature connection within a socio-spatial analytic.

Research shows that the human-nature relationship positively impacts human well-being. Forest School (FS) practice offers young children a structured program of nature connection through activities, aiming to enhance their self-esteem and social skills. FS is now adapted in countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand where a unique cultural interface occurs between European settlers and Indigenous peoples. Responding to socio-cultural diversities, geographical contexts, and the traditional ecological knowledges, FS needs to go beyond play pedagogy and incorporate theoretical perspectives that promote human-nature relationship in local context-specific environments. We argue that the synergies between Western perspectives on affordances perceived in person-environment relationship and Indigenous place-based relationality perspective provide a more suitable approach for developing reciprocal relationships between FS participants and land/place/nature. We propose that the synergies between affordances perceived in FS and place-based relationality cultivated in participants will enhance social and emotional well-being. We call for specific research investigating such synergies supporting participant well-being. Future research on FS practice should be directed toward initiating and exploring co-designed studies by Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers incorporating methodologies that study participant experience as well as evaluating the impact of FS programs embedding affordances and place-based relationality perspectives.

Parental support for children’s Forest School (FS) education is likely connected to the parents’ own views about FS. We investigated parents’ perceptions of FS by performing a qualitative study on parents’ views, as expressed in an online forum for parents (Mumsnet). Findings were grouped into two main categories, descriptive (what FS is) and evaluative (FS is good or bad). Thematic analysis revealed five dimensions of evaluation: skills and knowledge, nature connectedness and physical/mental health, structure, inclusivity and enjoyment. Along these dimensions we uncovered tensions between opposing views. We also identified two strategies for dealing with these tensions, dismissal and balance. This is the first study that identifies dimensions of evaluation for FS and potential parent satisfaction. The implications are discussed.

Forest school is a form of outdoor learning that takes children into regular and repeated learning experiences in natural settings. Being based on a comprehensive experience with nature, it is assumed to be beneficial for learning and to promote restorative effects on cognitive and emotional function in preschool children. This review aimed to examine the available evidence on the benefits of forest school compared to indoor school activities in children aged 3 to 6 years. We searched for studies on forest school for preschool children in PsycInfo, JSTOR, and Scopus, with no restriction on publication year. The risk of bias was assessed using Joanna Briggs’s criteria for quasi-experimental design. Of the 190 articles identified, 16 studies were reviewed (N = 1560). Higher benefits were found in children attending forest school compared to those attending indoor school in various areas of child development: cognitive function, motor coordination and balance, connectedness to nature, and health and well-being outcomes. There is, however, still a shortage of empirical evidence, and the methodological quality of most studies was limited. The literature on forest schools for preschool children in general supports positive effects in a wide range of variables that promote child health and development, but more evidence is needed to assess their effectiveness. Due to the methodological weaknesses of the reviewed studies, one should interpret their findings with caution.

This is a critique of an approach to outdoor education experienced in the United Kingdom (UK) at Forest School. Forest School came to the UK primarily from Scandinavia, where early years education conducted in the outdoors is a widely accepted practice. In its move to the UK, however, three major issues have arisen. The first concerns how Forest School as a form of outdoor education is culturally, socially, and historically situated. This suggests that its adoption in the UK must navigate cultural differences, acknowledging that Forest School is a social construction. Secondly, the pedagogy of Forest School, relevant as it is to early years education, is undertheorised in the outdoor education literature. This especially relates to considerations of play as a central tenet of Forest School pedagogy. Thirdly, the expansion of Forest School in the UK has taken a particularly corporate turn, resulting in a rapid institutionalisation and commodification of Forest School practices. The need to situate claims made for and about Forest School in well-designed and conducted research is crucial for substantiating what can degenerate into market-based promotion. Finally, some of the very positive contributions Forest School is making to the development of contemporary practices of outdoor and environmental education are introduced. This critique is written in the spirit of engaging in robust discussion and debate around Forest School in order to see the difficulties addressed and the positive contributions continue.

Negative emotionality, emotion regulation, and achievement: Cross-lagged relations and mediation of academic engagement

Parenting plays a crucial role in child development. Emotion Regulation (ER) is considered as an important ability during development since it is tightly associated with children’s future social competence and also their external and internal behaviors. This research investigation explores the profound impact of positive and negative parenting on pre-school and school age children's ER. The essay finds positive parenting, characterized by warmth, support, and consistent discipline, emerges as a crucial factor in nurturing healthier emotion regulation in pre-school children. These children exhibit greater emotional awareness and competence, fostering overall well-being and improved social interactions. Conversely, negative parenting, marked by harsh discipline and emotional neglect, obstructs emotional growth, leading to emotional dysregulation and behavioral challenges. Additionally, this paper delves into the nuances of the influence exerted by fathers and mothers on children's emotion regulation. While both parental figures play vital roles in a child's emotional development, their impact can vary due to unique parenting styles and interactions. In conclusion, this research underscores the pivotal role of positive parenting practices in cultivating robust emotion regulation skills in pre-school children. It emphasizes the necessity for parents to establish nurturing and supportive environments conducive to emotional growth and the importance of recognizing the distinct roles of fathers and mothers in shaping children's emotional development. Ultimately, comprehending the dynamics of parenting and their implications on children's emotional regulation is vital for creating a positive and nurturing environment that promotes children's well-being and emotional resilience.

Negative emotionality and emotion regulation: A person-centered approach to predicting socioemotional adjustment in young adolescents

Emotion generation and emotion regulation: The role of emotion beliefs

349 Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years Knight , Sara (2009). Los Angeles: Sage Publications; 131 pages. $35.95. ISBN 9781847872777. A growing body of research substantiates the benefits children receive from unstructured play with nature (Kellert 2005; Lester and Maudsley 2006; Taylor and Kuo 2006). Among the most significant obstacles for this play, however, are access to and availability of desirable and suitable play spaces (Fjørtoft 2001). Access is particularly limited for preschool children, who frequently do not have the autonomy to reach these places on their own. One solution has come in the form of forest kindergartens: mixed-age schools where children are outside in a forested setting for some or all of the day. Forest kindergartens, which generally serve ages 3 to 6, are well-established in Germany, where there were more than 300 such schools in 2003 (de Pommereau 2003). They have also been developed in Scandinavia (Fjørtoft 2001) and the U.K., and two schools have been started in the United States fairly recently (Leyden 2009; Valdes 2010). Despite this growing interest in forest kindergartens, there is little substantive research regarding their benefits for children. Many of the studies of German forest kindergartens are more descriptive of the program than evaluative in its effects (Kiener 2004). Within this context, then, Sara Knight’s book, Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years, is useful for educators, researchers, and those with interest in establishing a forest kindergarten. The book is focused primarily on forest schools in the U.K., giving a historical overview of their migration to the country, their current structure in U.K. settings, and the research claims for this approach in improving physical and emotional well-being, addressing childhood obesity, and cultivating positive social behaviors. Knight gives context to these schools in the broader educational philosophies of Pestalozzi, Froebel and Steiner, as well as Montessori, Reggio Emilia, Outdoor Adventure Education, and Te Whariki. The final two chapters of the book provide many practical suggestions for “getting the forest school ethos into settings” as well as case studies of forest kindergartens in the U.K. Knight is herself an early childhood educator and Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and has run and provided training in Forest Schools. The most interesting section of the book provides original data from a study Knight conducted with the Nayland School in Suffolk, England. This research replicated earlier studies with forest schools in the U.K. (Murray 2004; Murray and O’Brien 2005), which were then replicated in Scotland (Borradaile 2006). These studies evaluate the effects of forest kindergartens on low-income children who do not have access to natural settings outside of school. They focus on eight outcomes, including confidence, social skills, language and communication, motivation and concentration, physical skills, knowledge and understanding, new perspectives, and ripple effects related to other outdoor experiences. Many of these outcomes were evaluated through storyboarding with school staff, as well as direct observation of children’s play and experiences in the forest kindergarten 350 setting. Knight also asked children and parents questions related to any long-term influences of forest kindergartens on their children. Overall, children and parents find the forest kindergarten to be a positive experience, with most children and parents reporting increases in confidence, social skills, physical skills, and environmental knowledge, as well as ripple effects of being outdoors with family. Knight herself acknowledges that the research could be improved through a larger sample and changes to the research design. The original research from which Knight drew (Murray 2004; Murray and O’Brien 2005) presents the research in more depth and will be of greater value to those interested in setting up similar evaluations. However, the ability to build on previous studies with other forest kindergartens in the U.K., and therefore begin to accumulate a relevant and comparable study pool is of great merit, especially given the few studies that exist from any country. Previous research has frequently been more of a descriptive approach (Kiener 2004, Änggård 2010). While such research is valuable, the attempts made by Knight and her predecessors to combine qualitative and quantitative methods will deepen our understanding of...

This review aims to summarise existing research on the forest-based pedagogical approach known as forest school, as developed in the UK. Modelled on the nature kindergartens of northern Europe, forest school is popular in the UK and is now being practiced or explored in other countries around the world. Drawing on papers specifically researching forest school, identified through the Scopus database, it identifies and reviews key themes emerging from the literature: research on its development, relationship to classroom teaching and the national curriculum, impact on children’s development, and their relationship to the environment and environmental behaviour. It identifies the challenges and tensions emerging in the practice of forest school, between the performative agenda of schools and the alternative learning approaches embedded in forest school praxis. It summarises the attempts by several authors to develop theoretical models of forest school. It discusses the transferability of this forest education practice to new cultures, environments and educational systems. Finally, it concludes by identifying challenges for further research.

Emotional reactivity and regulation in preschool-age children who stutter

This paper examines Forest School’s potential to support gender equality among primary school-aged children. Using a rights-based perspective, an observational study – including children’s drawings – explored children’s constructions of gender in Forest School and classroom sessions. The study found that although children generally appeared more constrained by gender norms in Forest School than in the classroom, Forest School provided increased opportunities for greater freedom from these norms. These findings offer initial insights into aspects of Forest School that may address or perpetuate gender inequality, and raise questions about how Forest School practice might be adapted to support gender equality more effectively.

There have been calls to reconnect children with nature, both for their own wellbeing, as well as for ecological sustainability. This has driven the growth of outdoor and nature-schools for all ages, but especially in the early childhood education sector. However, to date, there has not been a quantitative study that looks at whether these settings actually promote nature connection. This paper aims to examine the role of nature nurseries in the promotion of connection to nature, when compared to traditional nurseries. Data were collected on the nature connection, using the Connection to Nature Index for Parents of Preschool Children, of 216 children aged 1–8 years, 132 of whom attended nature nurseries while the rest attended traditional nurseries. Duration and frequency of attendance, sex, and parental nature connection were also reported. Statistical analyses were conducted for overall nature connection scores, individual dimension sub-scores and, for the children who attended nature nursery, against predictors. Results indicate that attending a nature nursery is associated with higher nature connection. Predictors for children’s connection to nature were parental nature connection, and total time spent in attendance of an outdoor nursery. This suggests a dose-response style relationship between attendance and nature connection. Implications for real-life applications are put forward and further research directions are explored.