Author, Chris Birks, is a parent at Annie and Co and environment scientist . As this edition's guest blog contributor he walks us through why he and his partner chose Forest School for his children. Our eldest son started at Annie's when he was about 20 months old, after initially going to a conventional nursery. Moving him to Annie and Co is one of the best decisions we have ever made as a family. We wanted our son to have as many of his formative years outside and in nature as possible. We had read books about forest schools and were really inspired by the ethos and the commitment to young children enjoying the outdoors in all seasons, allowing them to experience and immerse themselves in a natural and physical environment that, sadly, could be all-too-absent growing up in an urban environment. We couldn't believe our luck when we found that there was a forest school option close to our house. We got in touch and Annie invited us along to visit. Seeing the children playing and exploring so happily and confidently at the amazing outdoor site where it is based, we immediately knew it was a place our son would be happy. We were impressed by the many years of experience Annie had in childcare, the creativity shown by the team at devising activities - everything from planting vegetables, to camp fires, to making hedgehome homes - and the care the children received. Our son thrived from day one, made great friends and he stayed at Annie's until he started at primary school (contrary to many arguments against forest schools, he adjusted easily to a classroom environment and there is no concern over his literacy or numeracy). Our youngest son started at Annie's when he was a year old. We are delighted that both boys have had such a joyful, adventure-filled start to their lives.

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Winter term 2024 Hi Folks! Welcome to our September newsletter. We hope you were all able to have a restful and happy summer. We have already heard about lots of the fun things you’ve all been getting up to and we are super excited to get all the updates from our little friends as they return to their new term with us. As with all Septembers you will be seeing new families and faces joining so please make sure to say a warm hello and welcome to our newest additions. For new joiners welcome on board! Here you will find our plans for the term and some general parent updates. We’ve got some fun things planned for the term and a few things to update you all on so a huge welcome back from the team and lets get stuck into some Foresting! Autumn term plans We have lots of fun activities planned for our little people this term. Not to mention some great festivals to celebrate together. Planting- We managed to grow some tomatoes which we are picking now but our potatoes and other plants and herbs were lost to an army of slugs which were supported in their quest to eat everything by so much rain!! The children loved picking them up every morning and putting them in a bucket and taking them to the hedgehog houses. We are going to try to grow some winter growing veg hopefully not too slug friendly !! There are many festivals and celebrations over the autumn term which we will be celebrating with your children such Diwali, black history month, Halloween, Christmas and more As well as using lots of natural materials for doing crafts we are going to work on doing more yoga, circle singing, storytelling and Forest School games. We are going to be preparing our hedgehog houses to make them comfortable for our hedgehogs to hibernate in the cold weather. The children have done really well at patiently watching the birds and knowing their names. We have a very friendly Robin as well as Colin the crow of course. In the future we hope to be able to buy some sound recording equipment so we can record them more accurately and hear them really clearly. We will also be making bird feeders for them to help them over the winter. We are on the lookout for more walking action outdoor story books such as bog baby or going on a bear hunt. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions let us know. News and updates We have renewed our Recognised Forest School status after passing our annual checks to make sure our forest school is still meeting the required standards or practice. We are still the only accredited early years forest school in north London and one of only three accredited early years setting in London. We are hoping to have a parent day around half term and our usual Christmas parent and alumni celebration this year. Watch this space or the whatsapp for firm dates as we get them into the calendar. Staff There are so many new staff members I had to make a new section for it! Please give these new faces a warm welcome if and when you next see them. New members of staff- Elaine, Deborah, Elecia, Gabi, Cissy, We have all had fun with Binta over the summer sadly for us she has to go back to uni. She is studying chemistry and pharmacy. We will all miss her but she will be back. She loves all the children!! On our long term young people's work experience programme Jackson, Poppy and Maya Year 13, all did really well in their A levels, Jackson and Poppy are going to uni and Maya is taking a year out so she will be around but also doing some travelling. Zac, Milo, Morolake, Myla and Belva are all going into year 13 and Jack will be joining us as he moves into year 12. Jack, like Maya, is returning to us as they are both alumni children. Staff training update Rachel has completed her level 3 Forest School Leader training and so is our newest crowned Forest leader in the forest gang. She has also now committed to the next step in her development which is the level 5 apprenticeship. This is no mean feat so please give her a well done for her Forest achievement and good luck for her level 5. Giulia continues with her Forest school training and is nearing the end of her course. Charlie continues with his level 3 Early Years childcare education course and his writing is going from strength to strength. Anna continues to make strides in her level 3 apprenticeship training and today gets a special shout out as, as part of apprenticeship month last May, she received the prestigious accolade of Apprentice of the Year from our apprenticeship Partners. This goes to show the huge commitment to her own learning and we are very proud of her achievements. This is the first newsletter since it happened in May but if you’d like to give her a belated well done now you know! Having had Hemmy with us for only a short time she has decided to take the plunge and has started her level 3 apprenticeship for Early Years. Deborah again having only been with us for a short time is also taking advantage of learning opportunities and has started her level 2 apprenticeship in Early Years. Elaine is about to start her level 3 Apprenticeship. Gabi is about to start her Forest school leader level 3 course. Just because staff are new doesn’t mean they can’t get on board the training train. Even our newest members have been hard at it. We are congratulating Elaine, Gabi, Elecia and Cissy for completing their paediatric first aid training, as well as food hygiene, and safeguarding. A special shout out in particular to Elecia who has shown a great hunger to learn and since starting has done every course we’ve thrown at her from FGM awareness, Prevent training, Introduction to safeguarding and Food hygiene. With all this interest in learning we can barely keep up with staff and their newest courses! Our commitment to ourselves, our children and our staff is that anyone can be a lifelong learner. The example that we set as staff to the children that attend is that there is always more knowledge to be learnt and betterment to be achieved and we are excited that our current staff team reflects this so beautifully. Please make sure to join us in encouraging them. We are also delighted to tell you that 4 of us are going to the FSA conference at the end of September to get lots more ideas and skills for having even more fun with your little people in the outdoors !! Housekeeping Please could we remind you that the last pick up time without receiving a fine is 5.30. The lateness fee that is in your contract will be applied from September. If you could please label your clothes even things like a vest, t-shirts, hats and gloves etc because it's really difficult to keep track of everyone's belongings. As you may have noticed the parent whatsapp group is now unfortunately a Read-only group. So if parents would like a message relayed to other parents you are welcome to message Annie who is a group admin or the duty manager who carries the cabin phone. The Cabin phone number is also an admin of the group but if you need it this number is 07452 781747.  We have put together a kit list which we have put on the website if you need it but it's not exhaustive so if you see anything else that you would like to recommend that would be great too. Vinted and H& M and even Sainsburys can have good stuff. https://www.annieandco.co.uk/parents Term dates for the year Please find below our dates for the calendar year. Please note: If a payment date falls during a holiday period the same amount is still payable as parents are charged only for the 47 weeks we are open across the year and spread across the year into 12 equal monthly payments. These can also be found if you need to refer to them throughout the year https://www.annieandco.co.uk/parents

As an outdoor setting we know that we have to things a little differently to to make sure our little people are reaching all their developmental milestones. Of course like all settings in the UK we are guided by the Early Years Educational Framework. However below we detail our principles of timetable and curriculum management that we use to make sure that our children receive a rich array of experiences in their early years educations. We know that the curriculum, learning environment, children's experiences and journey into life are only as good as the people delivering it. For this reason as well as the EYFS we look to these pillars below to make sure we are providing the required richness for our children to receive the best early years education our provision can provide, leveraging all 7 areas of effective learning and all the best aspects of outdoor education. 1. The setting up of the environment so they can learn from their surroundings, what we physically put out for them to play with. i.e. collections of toys, games or activities. This is called an enabling environment. So every morning it is important that we put out interesting and stimulating things for them too do and to find. 2. It is important that we create an environment where a child feels safe and respected and the environment is full of fun, love, nurturing and language. 3. Exposure to language is the most important element of creating a learning environment. It’s not important if you child is non verbal and it's not about asking questions or directional language such as ‘sit down’, ‘eat your food’ or ‘what colour is that?’. It’s about thinking and developing creative questioning in the minds of young people. It’s using creative language and observations of the world using words that are unusual, extending their exposure to a wider vocabulary. Research shows that richness in language encourages extended learning. 4. Planned and timetabled activities such as circle time, reading, story time should be daily before and after toast as well as other times. 5. Planned adult lead activities should also be daily but should be free choice such as painting, cutting, mark making, cooking, planting and digging. 6. Dynamic activities such as following the children’s lead requesting puppets or pretending to be a driver with passengers on a train. 7. Walking stories with books such as 'Bog Baby' and 'Going on a bear hunt' should be incorporated into the timetable at least twice a week. If we run out of these walking story books we should think them up ourselves with help from the children's imaginations. 8. Long term planned themed activities such as celebrations, festivals and nature projects such as hedgehog house building/care need to take place across the term within the termly planned activities, with strong reflections and scaffolded for learning throughout the term for the abilities of the group. 9. Pooling of everyone’s ideas and expertise. Asking people to lead activities that they are particularly good in certain areas is a great way to share the responsibility of planning throughout the team.

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Quick example of the powerful way forest school can help children build their personal, social, emotional development through group building projects and den building. How does den building hep PSED you ask? Ready the blog to find out

I am on a forest school journey. Sonya ( Daughter number 1) and I, completed our forest school training in 2018. We achieved the Forest school accreditation in May 2022 and were reassessed in May 2023 and it was renewed again. We are one of 6 early years settings in the UK to have this accolade. An integral part of being a forest school practitioner is to be committed to continuous professional development(CPD). Professional Development is important to all of us at Annie and Co. It brings new ideas and experiences for all of us and the children. Life is truly about expanding your experiences and learning always. With this in mind; to connect, to listen and to learn, I headed, on the last Friday of September, with Sonya and many like minding people to a sunbathed hill in Essex. Danbury outdoor center, just outside Chelmsford was the venue for the annual Forest School Association (FSA) conference. The conference was attended by over 300 people and was mine and Sonya’s first time attending. There were over a 1000 workshops to choose from and one could fit in up to 3 workshops over the course of the weekend. I wanted to concentrate on storytelling and how I could do it better. So I signed up to two different storytelling workshops, which both had interesting and helpful ideas that I could incorporate into my practice. I also attended another workshop and learnt how to make a light weight saw which was great fun too! There were also approximately 16 stalls, selling all sorts ranging from tools, work benches, outdoor clothing and willow to name but a few. I bought several palm drills for the children to use as well as small clamps to keep their objects in place, in order to drill safely such as conkers and acorns. The organisation of the conference was run really well. All the organisers and volunteers were so helpful and kind. There were quizzes, singing, dancing and campfires, lots of connecting, talking and laughing, as well as lots of food and cake. I met some very interesting people, who had great life stories. Nell Seal, who oversees the accreditation of Forest settings, organised a meeting between all the accredited settings and practitioners. This was another great session that allowed us to come together, share experiences and support each other. So many people in the world think that forest school is just about being outside, but there is so much more, a whole pedagogy in fact! This is why children we have in our setting show so much resilience, strength and well being. They learn so many life skills to prepare themselves for the next big adventures of their lives. All in all it was a really successful weekend and we are already really looking forward to attending next year. As Rachel is just about to complete her own Forest school Leader course we are hoping that she can attend with us too.

Round up and update from Annie and Co- North London's only recognised Forest school. Find out curriculum plans for the term and what our team is getting up to.