Early Years Education/ Nursery
We are a 'fully outdoors' forest school.
We offer an education that is unlike any other setting you will have come across. Our days are led and paced by the children. We are very relaxed and never in a rush! We have time to really nurture, share experiences and talk to the children. Our child-led approach allows us to foster childrens interests and enable them to be truly 'at one with nature'. They develop very special friendships over the year and every day is a huge adventure where they: climb trees, search for new bugs, make magic potions, travel to new imaginary worlds, learn new skills, build or make, and more than we could ever list. With each day they attend, their physical and emotional confidence and resilience grows. We are blessed to be part of the amazing journey the children make over the year ( or 2 years) and help and support the children to grow into happy, confident, independent, resilient and creative children who amaze us with their character and imagination!
Our Forest School is open to children aged 3 to 5 years. If children start with us during their pre-school year they can then continue their education with us right up until they are 5. They then have the opportunity to move to our 'Home Education' group or start school. They will be in receipt of their government funding until the term they turn 5.
We provide 38 weeks of outdoor learning experiences from 8.30am - 4pm 5 days a week.
If you would like to register an interest, please complete the form on the 'register' page.
We are able to enrol a small number of children who are soon to turn 3 (if their birthday is within the first term).
Please note we have 1 intake per year in September.
We are Forest School accredited (Level 3 forest school practitioner) and fully insured in order to be able to provide these Forest School experiences. We are also an 'Accredited Therapeutic Forest School Practitioner'.
At our woodland we have camps set up and spend our day within these and other parts of the woodland. Within our camps we have built (with the children) various structures that encourage imaginative play and physical development such as dens, balance beams, cob web and ladders. We have a camp fire area (aka the fire circle) where we gather for lunch, marshmallows, stories and cooking. The children develop a very healthy respect for the fire and learn how to stay safe around it.
We provide very little in the way of resources for the children to play with. They, very quickly learn how to use the resources that the environment offers to aid their play. They become very creative and imaginative and their favourite 'toy' is by far the stick!
We teach the children how to use tools safely so they can help chop wood for the fire, whittle sticks to toast the marshmallows on or snip the saplings using the secateurs.
We also spend a lot of time encouraging positive relationships between children and talk about feelings and emotions when the situations arise. If a child falls over and is upset, once they are ok, we talk about how nice it is to have friends who help each other when one is hurt.
The children enjoy routines of snack time and lunch time round the fire and story time. They enjoy visiting familiar sites within the reserve throughout the seasons and watching how they change.
Once children have finished their 'Early Years' with us children can then progress to the Home Ed group or Holiday sessions (only when spaces are available).
Please note when strong winds over 40mph are forecast we may have to close at short notice, we will move to our indoor venue In Newburgh (if it is available).
We will be contacting parents no later than the March/April before their child is due to start, we will then invite you to visit the setting and complete an 'enrolment' form. On this form you will then be able to request days. Once we receive these forms back we will then allocate places. Unfortunately we are unable to guarantee your child has a place until we have received these forms back. Siblings of previous children who have attended 'Into The Ark' have first refusal.
Once your child has been formally offered a place, we then require a retainer of approximately £100 (to be confirmed). If you decide not to take up the place, this fee is non-refundable.