At Highgate Primary School, learning takes place outside whenever possible.
This includes time spent within the school grounds, outward bound and adventurous activities, residential trips, forest school sessions in Highgate Woods and visits to the school allotment.
At Highgate Primary we are firmly committed to the principles of Forest Schools, which form an important part of our curriculum in the Early Years and Key Stage 1.
Forest School is a type of outdoor education in which our children learn personal, social and technical skills through regular visits to Highgate Woods.
It offers children many opportunities to achieve and develop confidence through hands-on learning in a woodland environment.
Forest School uses the woods as a means to build independence, teamwork, problem solving skills and self-esteem. The Forest School curriculum compliments the topics in the classroom and the woodland environment is used to support all areas of learning including mathematics and literacy.
Forest School is a long-term process of regular sessions, rather than one-off or infrequent visits; the cycle of planning, observation, adaptation and review links each session.
Forest School takes place in a woodland or natural environment to support the development of a relationship between the learner and the natural world. Most of our sessions are held in either Highgate woods or on the school allotment.
Forest School uses a range of learner-centred processes to create a community for being, development and learning.
Forest School aims to promote the holistic development of all those involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.
Forest School offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves.
Forest School is run by qualified teachers, some of whom are also Forest School practitioners, who continuously maintain and develop their professional practice.
The school is very fortunate to have acquired a substantial plot on the neighbouring allotments whose entrance is in Yeatman Road. The allotment is maintained by parents, staff and children through an after-school allotment club and is regularly visited by small groups of children within the school day. The Highgate Primary Curriculum provides children with opportunities to plant, nurture, harvest and cook food, providing all children with an understanding of where our food comes from.
The Highgate Allotment Society supports the school with this aim with many allotment holders keen to share the variety of produce on their plots. In the autumn term, produce donated by allotment holders is sold by children in a farmers’ market held in the school playground.
