Aberdeen City Early Years Conference

It was great to meet so inspiring people today and to have the opportunity to exhibit our work.  The theme of outdoor play and learning simply buzzes at the moment.  I was impressed as always with the practical and very accessible ideas that Juliet Robertson presents (see http://creativestarlearning.blogspot.com/) and also by the warm. funny loving and highly insprational Clare Warden (see http://www.mindstretchers.co.uk/articles.html )  So much food for thought.  Now I'm off for a week of level 3 forest school training.  I will miss my lovely class and the precious moments in the woods on Tuesday and Wednesday with our Nature Nurture Groups.  But hopefully I will come back with sackfuls of ideas

Its been a very busy and eventful month.  Our article appeared in TESS and it looks fantastic.  You can still read it on http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6012360.   We've also been able to set up a research project with a friend from Aberdeen University.  She will start work in August this year and research the what it is about Nature Nurture that works so well and what are the longer term effects of this early intervention.

Best of all we have started with two more groups of children.  One little girl is almost blind and she is helping us notice all the amazing sounds in the forest.  She also helps us remember how important it is to sing while we play.  Another child has witnessed terrible violence in his family home.  He's learning that adults can be gentle, can care about their environment and most of all can value him in his exploration and play.  

Nature Nurture began as a project aimed a providing outdoor play and learning opportunities for children from deprived areas of Aberdeen.   Now, working in partnership with Aberdeen City Council, we have funding to give 50 children from the most challenging of backgrounds chance to spend time in the tranquil woodlands in the estates of Camphill School on the outskirts of Aberdeen.  Groups of up to 10 children have  10 week block sessions of one afternoon a week following a programme designed to promote resilience, to raise self esteem and self confidence and develop awareness and appreciation of the natural environment.  Other outcomes have also been apparent, such as developing stamina, increased communication and social skills and a general catch up with developmental delays caused by trauma and hardship.  The feedback from the sessions so far has been heartwarming.  Parents and other professionals have been impressed by the therapeutic influence of natural surroundings, nurturing approaches and being outside no matter what the weather in suitably protective clothing.  The children have had so much fun and made more progress than any of us dared imagine.

Now we turn our sights to expanding our project.  We want to set up nurturing outdoor opportunities for older children from the poorest areas of Aberdeen and/or from deprived backgrounds.  By developing programmes that allow for art, craft, play, and loads of experiential learning in all the key curriculum areas, we hope to give even the most reluctant students an experience of success and belief in themselves as learners, creators, collaborators and custodians of their natural environment.

Our staff are co-workers from Camphill who have collectively over 50 years experience of working with children with a variety of learning challenges.  I'm a trained teacher and  additional suport needs educator, Daniel is a teacher and behaviour management expert and Kahren is a play therapist.  We base our approach on Waldorf Educational principles, A Curriculum for Excellence and Forest school approaches, combined with our years of experience designing therapeutic programmes in Camphill. The team share the firm conviction that it is every child's right to have the opportunity to play safely outdoors in beautiful and peaceful surroundings.  We hope to make our grounds available to every child in Aberdeen and surrounding areas, who would not otherwise have those opportunities.