Forth Environment Link’s Outdoor Learning and Play Service supports schools, nurseries and out of school care projects in the Forth Valley, to raise enthusiasm, participation and achievement through a wide range of training and grounds development support services.

Forth Environment Link has been delivering meaningful education and play projects across the Forth Valley area since 2001, and previously under the name of Kippen Environment Centre (established in 1989).

With our team of practitioners, our project delivery benefits from current ideas, thinking and networking at a national and international level. Our support for schools in the Forth Valley area currently focuses on:

Continuing Professional Development:

Delivering a programme of Continuing Professional Development with an emphasis on the Curriculum for Excellence through Outdoor Learning.

We offer the following CPD opportunities:

• Twilight sessions (can include in school class activity)
• Full day CPD linked to staff development days

Linking with council priorities, recent CPD programmes have included the following sessions:

SEEING THE WOOD FOR THE TREES:

How to succeed at woodland planting and management with P1-7s. Bushcraft skills and den making. Join our Olympian Tree Campaign to plant 2012 new trees in Stirling schools in one year. Free trees and hedge plants available for all who attend.

INCREDIBLE EDIBLE SCHOOLS:

Practical curriculum planning for the growing season, fork to fork growing and tasting projects, urban foraging and perennial food plants, abundance and harvest projects, establishing healthy tuck shops and successful enterprises with your prize veg. Free seeds available.

BUILD YOUR OWN PIZZA OVEN:

Working with professional pizza oven maker, come and understand the process, plan your own project and curriculum experiences and outcomes, and enterprise initiatives such as Healthy Tuck Shop and Pizza Friday

MANAGING RISK IN PLAY PROVISION:

Understanding guidance and legislation, managing opportunities for risk and challenge Including practical Risk Benefit Assessment and the new HSE guidance.

NATURAL PLAY AND WORKING WITH LOOSE MATERIALS:

Overcoming challenges of child centred and creative play with a wide range of delicious found, natural and constructive materials. The role of the adult at play, sourcing and sustaining resources, informal contexts for learning and the Curriculum for Excellence

MESSY MATHS- ACHIEVING NUMERACY THROUGH OUTDOOR LEARNING:

Demonstrating effective way of "learning it large" and practical exploration and practice in measurement and quantity through: Outdoor Masterchef in the Mud Kitchen, Experimenting with speed, distance and time with Simple Water Clocks and the use of rope work and sand in practical numeracy.

School Grounds Design Service:

Providing bespoke advice and concept designs with specifications and outline costings to nurseries, primary and secondary schools in the Forth Valley area: we support schools and nurseries who wish to develop their outside spaces for learning, teaching, and play

FEL Library and Lending Resources:

The new contemporary library resource features a large collection of resources on every aspect of outdoor learning, environmental education and sustainable living. The library is hosted and managed by Little Stars Nursery at CraigForth.  Available to all Forth Valley schools, nurseries and out of school care projects it is also available for library LICS Passport holders. It features many thousands of books, videos, posters, magazines, toys, CDs, tapes, habitat hampers and story sacks. Also practical equipment and artifacts, from pond dipping nets and microscopes to skulls, fossils and fungi. Contact Katie at Little Stars: 01786 445552.

Resources are available to anyone involved in any aspect of delivering environmental topics:

Habitat Hampers and Story Sacks
Packed with cross-curricular resources, natural objects, posters, books and worksheets, these large wicker boxes are targeted at Primary 4 -7. Each hamper focuses on a discrete habitat and resource:

Our smaller biodiversity baskets have been developed to help you deliver biodiversity education. You can take advantage of this collection of natural objects is to support formal and community groups by providing hands-on, intimate, connections with the diversity, ecology and wonder of the natural world.

Story sacks are available for small group working with either a very small number of children or as part of another outdoor based activity. They contain a selection of books and props on the themes of: hedgehogs, frogs, ladybirds etc...

School Grounds Resource Box – this collection of resources provided on behalf of Grounds for Learning and supported by Scottish Natural Heritage is available on loan, free of charge, to any school looking to develop their school grounds.

Natural Play:

We believe that playgrounds should be places of experiment and invention, creativity and construction, dreams and surprise. Nothing less will do. With involvement in the leading Natural Play developments in Scotland we can help you to think through and develop natural play environments, resources and training for support staff and teaching staff.

Olympic Forest:

Join us and our partners this year to celebrate the Olympics by creating an Olympic Forest For Stirling. We are working with schools and nurseries to plant 2012 trees across Stirling for learning, play and biodiversity.

Contact:

For more information contact Jane Cullingworth, Executive Director at Forth Environment Link at 01786 449 215 or at jane@forthenvironmentlink.org

Rates:

Below is a guide to our rates:

• 2 hour session of twilight CPD including theory and practical sessions, follow up info and resources - £340
• 2 hour session of CPD with staff, plus 1 hour of class based training activities, follow up info & resources - £390
• 2 hour school grounds  development  & design advice session with Playspace Designer plus follow up information and resources - £225

• Delivery of school grounds development professional Concept Design Plans plus outline costings and specifications - £825