Carrie Roet

So, I first came across Forest School when I was volunteering. I’d had my children, they were both still under school age, and I’d stayed at home with my children, for better or worse. I was lucky enough to be in a position to think about what I wanted to do next and completely change the course of my career. So, I was volunteering in a school, doing their allotment with a group of people that had come together through a permaculture course and I saw that they were running Forest School on the other side of the field, and I was intrigued by it. I instantly fell in love with it because it just seemed to be perfect for the children that were coming to it in that particular school. They seemed to really benefit from having the space and the time to connect with adults in a really different way. Obviously, for teachers, absolutely fabulous, but a very different role that adults had in Forest School. They were there to listen to the children, they were there to let the children follow their own lead and their own intrinsic motivation, and very often, these children, they just wanted to talk, actually. They wanted to talk to you, wanted to connect with you. I loved that, the fact that we were going out every week, when I started volunteering with Forest School as well, we were going out every week whatever the weather, and these children had the opportunity to really get to know you and talk to you and confide in you. The other side to that, obviously, is that nature itself provides such a wonderful, wonderful place for children to discover who they are and what they’re interested in and learn through direct experiences. So, I then trained as a Forest School leader, not thinking too far ahead, but obviously thinking my children would really, really benefit from this process, and I would get so much job satisfaction from being outside every day doing this, what looked like a dream job.