LORETTO SCHOOL

For Site Visit #5 we head to a part of the world that has been incorporating Forest Schooling into their education system for many years—the UK!

Loretto - Scotland’s oldest boarding school is a prestigious private school, ranking amongst the worlds top schools. Based on an 80 hectare campus just outside the beautiful city of Edinburgh, this campus has been in operation since the 1800’s. With its own private woodland, this campus offers the ideal setting for Forest Schooling. With a full time Forest Preschool and a 1-day-a-week program for its primary school students, this Forest School offers students a relief from the pressure of rigorous classroom responsibilities. The Director holds Forest School Level 3 training and spoke about the extensive training course she had to go through in order to achieve this certification. She utilized training resources from WILD Passport which you can see in my pictures below.

After observing a Forest School session for 7 year olds and speaking to students, it was clear getting out into the forest was one of their favorite times of the week. I got the opportunity to chat with the primary school teacher and she explained how beneficial Forest Schooling sessions have been for her class. She mentioned her students with learning exceptionalities, including ADHD, had exceptional levels of success from Forest Schooling sessions, leading to a noticeable change in their behavior both outside and inside the classroom.

Below you can view pictures from their unique historic campus, as well as their woodland classroom to get a birds eye view into the FS experience at Loretto. Yes, the castle is a part of their campus and is known as, The Pinkie House dating back to the 16th century!