Forest School News
Click on the News stories below to find out about how the Forest School was created and the wonderful learning experiences our children enjoy every day in this special natural space.
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Tuesday 23 September 2025 Forest Friends Every Wednesday, our Forest Friends meet to enjoy exploration, games and fun in our Forest School. All pre-school children are welcomed and it's a good chance for their parents to enjoy our lovely Forest School Garden and meet with school staff.
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Monday 22 September 2025 After School Club Children enjoy lots of exciting Forest School activities in our after school clubs!
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Tuesday 17 June 2025 Visiting Gardeners We were delighted to welcome members from a local community gardening group, who regularly maintain the Therapeutic garden at St Mary's church. Our children were proud to show our guests around their Forest School and the visitors had a great time exploring the space. There was also time for an exchange of gardening skills, as the children showed our visitors how to water the garden and also learned from the gardening team how to create and maintain the compost heap. We look forward to many more visits!
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Thursday 28 March 2024 Toasty Marshmallows! Our Reception class enjoyed their final #forestschool session of the term this week. They particularly loved the fire pit and toasted marshmallows!
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Friday 9 February 2024 Birdwatching St Mary's were excited to take part in this annual survey, along with thousands of people across the country. Our team of enthusiastic ornithologists used their binoculars to carefully observe and count the number of bird species in our Forest School Garden. The data sent to the RSPB will help them to build up a picture of how our wildlife is faring. We also filled some new bird feeders and hung them around the garden to encourage more birds to visit and hopefully nest in the Spring time.
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Thursday 14 December 2023 Autumn Term Pre-School Group We celebrated the last Forest Friends session of the term with a fire pit and toasted marshmallows!
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Monday 16 October 2023 Creative Clay Modelling! The children at St Mary's love their weekly Forest School sessions!
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Sunday 10 September 2023 Exploring Stories The children had a great time in the Forest School, gathering resources to build story settings and to make a home for Kevin (the flying pony) who is the main character in their class reading book.
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Friday 9 June 2023 Beekeeping Following the planting of Bee Friendly plants around the school, we were delighted to welcome visitors from the London Beekeepers Association, who met with every class in KS2 to teach them all about bees. The talks were informative and helped to develop the children's understanding of ecosystems, biodiversity and the vital role that bees play in food production and plant life cycles.
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Thursday 6 April 2023 Forest School Opening It was an honour for St Mary's to celebrate the Grand Opening of our Community Forest School. We had the pleasure of welcoming many guests, including Bishop Karowei as well as the Mayor of Lewisham, Damien Egan, who officially opened our Community Forest School Garden.
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Wednesday 15 March 2023 Training Community Forest School Leaders We want as many people as possible in our Community to enjoy the benefits of our Forest School...
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Friday 26 August 2022 Construction Our children and community were thrilled to see the Forest School garden coming to life as the area was landscaped and the main features added. The outdoor classroom frame was constructed, alongside the Tree House, Fire Pit, Mud Kitchen and the Pond.
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Monday 13 June 2022 Design Lying at the heart of our new Forest School will be some beautiful artwork created by the children of St Mary’s...
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Friday 22 April 2022 Site Clearance and Amazing Volunteers! Supported by an amazing team of volunteers, the first step was to clear the site...
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Wednesday 1 September 2021 Vision A patch of unused wasteland next to St Mary's Primary School was overgrown and filled with rubbish. The School had a vision to transform this area into a Forest school garden...