The Little Firefly Forest School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive motivated and eager for a day of stimulating and exciting activities in the woodland. They are warmly welcomed by the enthusiastic and extremely nurturing staff. Children show they are exceptionally happy and secure. Their behaviour is exemplary and they know and understand the boundaries and rules in place to keep them safe. They show an excellent understanding of how they need to behave in the forest school environment. This excellent behaviour means that children can make the very most of the fascinating and enchanting learning environment.

Children enjoy listening to imaginative stories. Staff use superb expression to engage the children, building language skills with a range of new and familiar vocabulary. Children build on and develop excellent physical skills as they use their bodies to climb. They assess the risk as they climb and talk about how they are going to get to the top and down again safely. Children are consistently engaged in activities and demonstrate awe and wonder at the endless possibilities of discovery in the forest. For example, children excitedly gasp and point out the budding poppies growing between crops in the farmer's field.

Children benefit from extremely rich experiences that help them to learn about the world around them. For example, they learn about how farmers harvest their crops to gather food for the animals in the winter. They talk about the size and shape of the bales. They later explore the bales and enjoy using their bodies to measure how long and tall the bales are, learning about size and shapes in real and memorable ways.

What does the early years setting do well and what does it need to do better?

• All staff plan an extremely well-sequenced and broad curriculum. This is based on an accurate understanding of the needs of the children. Staff expertly and consistently extend children's learning. The key-person system is highly effective and staff share all children's next steps in learning. This provides a cohesive and consistent approach to delivering high-quality teaching.
• The innovative staff engage children in meaningful tasks to teach them about healthy lifestyles. For example, they grow their own fruit and vegetables to cook and eat as part of their daily meals.
• Children behave exceptionally well. They show a huge amount of respect for the others around them. They listen to each other's ideas and suggestions in their play. For example, when playing at the mud kitchen, children talk about the potions they are making and share ideas for things they can use to make them smell nice.
• Children's use of language and communication is exceptional. Staff ask extremely well-considered and thoughtful questions that really make children think. This develops children's critical-thinking skills as they process their thoughts and respond in clear and complex sentences. For example, children explain the life cycle of birds and bring in nests they have found in bushes at home. They talk about the type of bird that may have made the nest, that birds make nests to lay eggs and that they look after them until they hatch into baby birds.
• Children enjoy regular visits from a therapy dog to the forest school. They enjoy talking about how they care for the dog. The therapy dog supports children's well-being incredibly well. They comment that they saw the therapy dog at the doctor's surgery when they were poorly, and that it made them feel better to see a friend at the surgery.
• Staff build on children's interests and support their zest for learning extremely well. For example, children show a keen interest in the many things they can find on the woodland floor. They show these things to staff, talking about what type of leaf they have found and what tree it has come from. Children become totally engrossed in learning about the woodland and the plants and trees that grow there.
• Children are resilient and confident as they explore the endless possibilities around them. They keep trying as they develop new skills and are extremely confident to try out their own ideas. These positive dispositions to learning help to prepare them extremely well for the next steps in their learning.
• Staff feel valued and well supported in their continuous professional development. They have allocated time and resources to build and learn new skills based on personal interests. They use these skills to inform their practice and share new learning within the team. They discuss how their learning can impact on the quality of their teaching for the children. For example, staff learn about bushcraft and how they can use this to teach children more about the woodland around them.