Since schools have reopened in August, pupils in mainstream education have been experiencing the much-needed health benefits of seeing their friends at school.
For home-educated young people, this has not been possible as many of the social events and group meetings have been cancelled. Following the disruption to routine, parents have reported an increase in anxiety levels and setbacks in progress, particularly among those with existing mental health concerns and/or additional support needs.
We are Naturedays at Aigas and our #GreenHealthEvent was a series of outdoor workshops for home educating families focussing on the social benefits of group learning. Through October and November, we ran sessions covering a range of topics. We started by reclaiming the woods with den building and fire lighting then crafted natural art in an Autumn workshop. In other sessions, we explored different wildlife survey methods by pond dipping, setting camera traps and learning tracks and signs.
Check out this awesome Dilophosaurus created in one of our Autumn art sessions, complete with wood chip teeth, red crests and neck frills, à la Jurassic Park.
We have already seen young people forming new friendships and getting enthusiastic about nature together. We encourage parents and accompanying adults to join in too as we all need to get our wellies muddy from time to time! The opportunity to play and socialise is just as important for adults as for children.
A woven willow birdfeeder that we made!
Though we lead the sessions, the young people taking part have shown stunning natural history knowledge and we often find ourselves learning from them (did you know the Autumn colours are different depending on whether there has been a frost, or that the Dilophosaurus didn’t actually have neck frills in real life?).
Though our workshops are pointed squarely towards the health and wellbeing benefits of outdoor learning, developing life skills and teamworking are a bonus. We have much more planned and will continue to run sessions for home educators!
