Picture a group of two- and three-year-olds in waterproofs, crouched around a puddle with a stick and a look of complete concentration. Nobody is telling them what to do. A practitioner is nearby, watching, waiting, ready to step in with a question rather than an instruction. Down the path, another small group is hammering a nail into a plank at the woodwork bench, and someone is carefully carrying a tray of seedlings to the planting bed. It is 10am and it has been raining since breakfast. Nobody minds.
That scene captures the spirit of a forest school nursery far better than any definition. Interest in outdoor-led early years education has grown steadily among families in Enfield and across North London, particularly parents who want their children to spend less time on screens and more time getting genuinely muddy – while still receiving the care, routine and learning opportunities that a good nursery provides. Here is how the approach actually works, what a typical day looks like, and the questions worth asking before you choose a setting.
What Is a Forest School Nursery?
A forest school nursery is an early years setting where the forest school ethos underpins the whole day rather than being an occasional outing or a summer term treat. The approach grew out of Scandinavian outdoor culture, where long stretches of time in nature in all weathers were simply part of childhood, and it was taken up in the UK through woodland-based programmes for school-aged children. Nurseries have since adapted those principles for children aged roughly one to five, softening the edges and shaping the sessions around the needs of very young learners.
Several features distinguish a genuine forest school approach from ordinary outdoor play. The first is regular, repeated time in the same natural space, so that children build a relationship with it. They notice the puddle that forms in the same dip after every rain shower, the buds appearing on a familiar branch in spring, the slugs and beetles hiding under the same log. This continuity is what turns a garden into a place that feels like the children’s own. The second is child-led play: adults facilitate, observe and extend, but they do not march everyone through a set activity at set times. The third is a thoughtful approach to risk and challenge – climbing, balancing, digging, lifting, and using real tools under close supervision, because manageable risk builds confidence and physical competence.
It is worth being clear about one thing: forest school is an ethos, not a statutory curriculum. In England, settings still follow the Early Years Foundation Stage and Development Matters, and a forest school nursery is no exception. The difference is that the learning happens through the outdoor environment rather than being delivered through worksheets, circle-time lessons or plastic toys with a single prescribed use. A child counting stones into a bucket is doing maths. Negotiating who holds the trowel is communication and language. Building a den that becomes a home for a family of make-believe rabbits is imaginative play and personal, social and emotional development rolled into one.
Many settings now blend this ethos with a Montessori-inspired approach, and the two fit together more naturally than you might expect. Montessori places enormous value on independence, real materials and a prepared environment; the outdoors is the ultimate prepared environment, endlessly adaptable and full of authentic, meaningful work for small hands – carrying, digging, pouring, planting, sweeping, scrubbing. Both approaches trust the child to choose, and both ask the adult to step back and prepare rather than perform.
How a Forest School Nursery Day Actually Works
The day usually begins with arrival and a wellies-and-waterproofs routine that becomes second nature surprisingly quickly. Settings ask families to send children in weather-appropriate layers, and most keep spare clothing on site because mud happens. Children often gather at a base camp – a shelter, a log circle or a covered outdoor area – for a short morning greeting, where practitioners talk about the day, the weather, and anything new in the space. It is a gentle anchor rather than a formal lesson, and for the youngest children it is kept very short indeed.
From there, the day tends to flow between indoors and outdoors rather than being split into rigid blocks. A Montessori-inspired room might open straight onto the garden, so a child can move between the practical life shelf – spooning, threading, polishing, pouring – and the mud kitchen without asking permission. Outdoor provision commonly includes dens and shelters, digging areas, water channels, planting beds, minibeast hunts, balancing logs, and a woodwork or tool area used under close supervision with proper risk assessment. Some settings also cook simple snacks over a small, carefully managed fire as children get older, always with clear safety routines and designated boundaries that children learn and repeat.
Food, rest and care routines are woven through the outdoor day rather than suspended for it. Snack might be eaten outdoors with a warm drink on cold days, with handwashing before and after. Younger children still nap, still need nappy changes or toileting support, and still need a warm, quiet corner to retreat to. A well-run setting treats these needs as part of the rhythm of the day, not interruptions to it. The key person relationship matters here as much as it does in any nursery: the same familiar adult notices what a child is working on, records it, and shares it with parents, often through photographs, short observations or a learning journal.
Weather rarely cancels the day, but it does change it. Practitioners watch the forecast, keep shelter close, and have plans for high winds or thunderstorms that move the group indoors or into a more protected space. Adults are trained to observe, to model, and to help children assess risk for themselves – “is that branch steady enough to hold you?” rather than an automatic no. The ratio of adults to children, the quality of the outdoor space and the practitioners’ understanding of the EYFS all matter far more than whether the setting sits beside a woodland or simply has a generous garden and access to green space nearby.
Choosing a Forest School Nursery: What to Ask and Why the Montessori Blend Suits Under-Fives
Visiting is the single best way to understand how a setting really works. Ask about daily routines, the adult-to-child ratio, what outdoor clothing families need to provide, how the space is used in winter, and what happens when the weather turns. Ask how learning is recorded and shared, and how the setting links everyday outdoor experiences to the EYFS. Look at the shelter, the storage for waterproofs, the handwashing facilities, and whether the outdoor area has genuine variety – texture, height, shade, water, things to dig and things to climb. Above all, watch the children. Are they absorbed? Are they allowed to get messy? Do the adults seem calm and interested in what children are doing, rather than busy herding them between activities?
For parents searching for a baby room nursery Enfield with an outdoor heart, the key question is how the ethos is adapted for the youngest children. A one-year-old needs the same warmth, routine, one-to-one attention and safe sleeping arrangements as any baby, with outdoor time layered on gradually through short, frequent visits, sensory play, and lots of unhurried cuddles in a familiar adult’s arms. Ask how toddlers are supported to walk on uneven ground, how naps work when the group is outside, and how practitioners keep a close eye on children who cannot yet tell you they are cold or tired.
The Montessori blend adds a further layer worth exploring. A Montessori-informed room tends to feel calm and uncluttered, with low shelves, natural materials and a noticeable absence of plastic noise. Children are shown how to use real tools, carry their own things, pour their own water and tidy up after themselves – all of which dovetails neatly with the forest school emphasis on self-reliance and genuine participation in the life of the group. Mixed-age groups also allow older children to mentor younger ones, which builds language, patience and empathy on both sides.
Location shapes the practical side too. Families in Enfield and the surrounding North London boroughs often weigh travel time, term-time hours and wraparound options alongside the ethos itself, particularly if they are juggling work and a school run. Ask whether the setting runs term time only or all year, what happens during school holidays, and how children are kept in the loop when they move on to primary school. If you can, visit on a wet day rather than a bright one – it tells you more about how the team handles all-weather outdoor learning than any brochure ever will, and it gives you a real sense of what your child would actually experience on an ordinary Tuesday in February.
