School of Creation Rationale

I am a trained level 3 forest school practitioner and this means I have been trained to teach a forest school programme. I have been doing this within a  special needs FE college in the north west of England for over ten years, until I recently retired. Outlined below are the  ethos and underlying principles of forest school, these are taken from the following website: forestschool-association.org  (accessed12/9/26). I am presenting  these here because what I believe the Lord is developing as the School of Creation will share some of these principles. I say some because forest school has not been developed with any reference to Christian values as such. Clearly these will be the values that we would want adhere to here. This is clearly demonstrated by our embracing of the reality that our world in all its beauty is the work of the creator and it is His creation.  And moreover, His son Jesus is the creative Word,

              In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,    and the Word was God.                                                             The same was in the beginning with God.                                                                                                                                                       All things were made by him;                                                                                                                                                                               and without him was not any thing made that was made.                                                                                                                       In him was life; and the life was the light of men.                                                                                                                                         John 1:1-4

'Forest School has a developmental ethos shared by thousands of trained practitioners around the world, who are constantly developing their learning styles and skills to support new and imaginative learners. Its roots reach back to the open-air culture, friluftsliv, or free air life, seen as a way of life in Scandinavia where Forest School began. It arrived in the UK in 1993 and has grown from strength to strength since then.

The process helps and facilitates more than knowledge-gathering, it helps learners develop socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually. It creates a safe, non-judgemental nurturing environment for learners to try stuff out and take risks. Forest School inspires a deep and meaningful connection to the world and an understanding of how a learner fits within it. Our approach to risk means that learners constantly expand on their abilities by solving real-world issues, building self-belief and resilience. We believe that risk is more than just potential for physical harm, but a more holistic thing, there are risks in everything we do, and we grow by overcoming them. Forest School therefore, helps participants to become, healthy, resilient, creative and independent learners.'

Who can argue with any of that? Within the School of Creation we would to take this and to add another layer. This layer is one within which an individual will be supported to make for themselves cognitive, practical and most importantly  spiritual connections and also connections with others and again most importantly a connection with their creator Father as well. At the heart of this will be the guided unpacking of God's word and his principles of spiritual growth for the individual from those leading the sessions.