Stomping Grounds Forest School North East

Last chance to sign up!!

We hope you've enjoyed a fantastic summer, whether you've been travelling or staying close to home! As the last week of summer break approaches, why not give your young ones an unforgettable experience with us?

For £40 a day, they can spend a full 6-hour day in the woods, adventuring, making new friends, and learning valuable skills in a fun and natural environment. Treat them to a memorable end to their summer before they head back to school!

https://www.stomping-grounds.org/what-we-offer/holiday-clubs/

Look at all these smiling faces! Thank you to those booked onto Larch, Willow and Elder this week.

Larch and Willow are a part of our fully funded Holidays, Activities and Food scheme. Did you know that 1 in 5 children in the UK faces food insecurity? The scheme helps bridge that gap, providing vital support to families in need 🙌 This initiative ensures that every child has access to enriching activities and nutritious meals during school breaks. 🍎🎨 Let’s make every holiday a time of growth, learning, and fun for all children!

If you are interested in our holiday club but do not meet the requirements for the HAF scheme then book through:
https://www.stomping-grounds.org/what-we-offer/holiday-clubs/

If you think you qualify for HAF scheme then book through: https://www.stomping-grounds.org/what-we-offer/funded-holiday-clubs/

Want to help? Donate here: https://www.stomping-grounds.org/support-us/donate/

A big thank you to:
Leading Link
Northumberland County Council
North East Child Poverty Trust
Department for Education

We hope you've enjoyed a fantastic summer, whether you've been travelling or staying close to home! As the last week of summer break approaches, why not give your young ones an unforgettable experience with us?

For £40 a day, they can spend a full 6-hour day in the woods, adventuring, making new friends, and learning valuable skills in a fun and natural environment. Treat them to a memorable end to their summer before they head back to school!

https://www.stomping-grounds.org/what-we-offer/holiday-clubs/

We still have a few spaces left at our ELDER holiday club this week and next. Looking to end the summer holidays with an adventure? Sign up now using this link https://bookwhen.com/stompinggrounds?tags=elder

What a fabulous two weeks we have had at our LARCH holiday club at Dukes Hagg. As always we love to hear directly from the young people about how their experience in the woods was.

‘’You said one of our 'Look afters' was to look after each other, so when we fell out we went to different places and then came back and said sorry. Now we’re friends again.’’ It's always so lovely to see young people use their own initiative, make their own decisions, and solve their own problems.

‘’I realised why my mam told me to go outside…it’s so chilled here."
The “chill” environment of the forest provides a free space for young people to not only be their authentic selves but dive into creativity, discovery and play, allowing for the development of critical thinking abilities, independence, and teamwork skills.






Thank you to:
Leading Link
Northumberland County Council
Prudhoe Town Council

6 week Saturday morning beginners pottery course Ever fancied trying pottery? We will take you through the basics on this 6 week taster course!

We still have 8 more days of our ELDER summer holiday club.
What can you expect in one of our sessions? Your young people will arrive at our 33 acres to run, forage and play in. Every session we invite the young people to build a fire and cook a snack on the fire. We are a child-led environment therefore we have young people play or relax as they wish. We do have options for games and woodland crafts too.
If you are interested, please follow this link: https://www.stomping-grounds.org/what-we.../holiday-clubs/
If you know someone who is looking for adventures this holiday based in the North East tag them or share this post!

👏🏿

Response to a Guardian article published on 16th August 2024 Some of you may have read the article that appeared in this morning’s Guardian “I’m all for the concept of ‘forest school’ – just not the kind I pulled my kids out of” by Emma Brockes. (Here on Twitter)Our Head of Forest School, Stephen Simpson, said: “I found this article disrespect...

It was so good to be back this week at our BIRCH holiday club in Benwell.

In the week consisting of arts and crafts, the building of a boat, and an expedition searching for all the things weird and wonderful (bug edition), we asked the young people what they had enjoyed the most about the club this week.

This is what they said:

"Gathering blackberries"
"Whittling Wood"
"Making potions"
.. and what we love to hear...

"Just everything about the club"

Thank you to Street Games and Newcastle Council for giving us the opportunity to have an awesome week!

Let the kids loose over the last two weeks of the summer holidays with our ELDER holiday club for young people aged 5-12.

Delivered by expert practitioners with high staff ratios, this club supports children to explore the outdoors, manage their own risks, lead their own discovery and build relationships with their peers. Access to child led experiences in nature are proven to support good mental health and well being. Children who attend will take part in a range of outdoor adventures such as fire lighting, whittling, games, crafts, foraging, navigating and more.

Remaining August dates

Week 5: Monday 19th- Friday 23rd
Week 6: Tuesday 27th- Friday 30th

To book: https://bookwhen.com/stompinggrounds?tags=elder

There are still some spaces left in these last two weeks of the summer holiday at our ROWAN holiday club in Leadgate with the Durham County Council Fun and Food HAF scheme. Those in receipt of a ticket can use the QR code to book a space with us.

We currently also have some limited spaces left for young people classed as vulnerable and those of greatest need, but who are not eligible to attend under the HAF scheme. If you think your young person is eligible and would like to check the criteria please email [email protected]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/funandfoodcountydurham/



FunandFood Dcc

TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY TO EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST!

At our Sunday Reframing Autism sessions, we have a variety of therapists, advocates, support agencies and craftspeople. Learn more as a family about autism and ADHD and how to reframe it to understand the beauty of neurodivergence.

Follow this link to express your interest before the 15th of August: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScY77KmV8TI_YteNsOfzY7GtQ1oIs3WpXE53M7ocApCQ4KfyQ/viewform

Our ELDER summer holiday club has dates available for the last 3 weeks of the school break! What can you expect in one of our sessions? Your young people will arrive at our 33 acres to run, forage and play in. Every session we invite the young people to build a fire and cook a snack on the fire. We are a child-led environment therefore we have young people play or relax as they wish. We do have options for games and woodland crafts too.

If you are interested, please follow this link: https://www.stomping-grounds.org/what-we-offer/holiday-clubs/

If you know someone who is looking for adventures this holiday based in the North East tag them or share this post!

Another week, another big adventure at ROWAN holiday club.

It has been so wonderful witnessing children starting the day as strangers and ending it as 'best friends', as one young person said.
Feeling perhaps a little nervous or hesitant at first and soon enough their true personalities shine through. There's something magical that happens in the woods; a chance for young people to be their authentic selves and embrace each other just as they are.

It has been such a remarkable experience to support these children to unleash their creative thinking and problem solving skills in a setting that provides so many opportunities.


FunandFood Dcc

What a brilliant time we had in the first two weeks of the summer holidays at our WILLOW holiday club. Big shout out to Leading Link and Prudhoe Town Council for helping us have the best time this summer.

Prudhoe Town Council
Leading Link

GCO is Proud to be a North East Organisation which was built on values around difference.

Our beautiful town and neighbouring City, Newcastle are filled with beautiful people from all faiths and cultures living and working together.

In our journey we have made friends with so many other community organisations with a shared ethos that together we are stronger.

Birkheads Wild Stomping Grounds Forest School North East Green Heart Collective Big Local Gateshead Deals on Meals Gateshead Cumbric Corner Side By Side Arts Junction Point UK Celebrate Difference ADHD

Just 4hrs in the woods at Gateshead Riverside Park with our practitioners can have a huge impact on chidren and young people.

"They're loving it, his confidence is really showing!
We supported a young person who can struggle with social relationships to feel comfortable in our setting and happy sharing his passion for a video game - he bonded with another young person over it - next day he brought in some huge drawings of the characters and they played a real-life version of the game together. Our welcoming "be yourself" approach enabled this.

"This is the best club ever! I wish I could come every day."
A young person told us how much more they were enjoying our club instead of football club because with us "you can do what you want". Every morning we discuss as a group the importance of looking after ourselves, each other and nature, then we give young people the space and support to take risks, try new things and follow their interests. This supports their learning and their enjoyment.

"They didn't stop talking about Forest School all night!"
Some local young people have walked down to join us every day we've been on for the last 2 weeks. The ever-changing nature of outdoor play has kept them entertained and coming back for more. Our staff observe each child's interests and offer new activities to complete alone or with others to make everyone feel welcome and to have fun.

We're looking forward to more of this when Beech holiday club is back at Gateshead Riverside on 20th August. Last few spaces available to book at https://www.stomping-grounds.org/what-we-offer/holiday-clubs/

Department for Education
Tyne Derwent Way

At our Reframing Autism sessions, we have a variety of therapists, advocates, support agencies and craftspeople. Learn more as a family about autism and how to reframe it to understand the beauty of neurodivergence.

If this is something you think your family would like to be involved in, please follow this link to register your interest for our Autumn sessions before the 15th August:

https://forms.gle/Vor3mNuMyaDV53mr5

Everybody deserves psychological and physical safety and belonging, yet recent violence and racism have left already marginalised communities, families and people fearful and frightened.

To all our fellow charities out there who work directly with refugees and asylum seekers and have had to close their doors this week, we recognise all your hard work and know that the charitable sector can and will come together to pick up the pieces and continue to be part of a welcoming and diverse region.

We stand in solidarity with anyone affected by hate crimes and will always offer a space of belonging for anyone who needs it.

The first week of Holiday Club at our newly created site at Gateshead Riverside Park has been wonderful! Local young people have explored and enjoyed the park on their doorstep in new ways. They have sculpted, painted, climbed, jumped, relaxed and played beautifully.
They know that this woodland is for them, they've helped pick up litter and care for the site, and they are starting to build relationships with each other and with their local nature.
After weeks and months of work by staff, volunteers and local residents, it was heartwarming to see the hard work pay off with everyone having a safe and fun week.

Department for Education
Tyne Derwent Way

Friendships forged, and boundaries explored
Woodland volleyball, and tasty snacks for all
Digging for gold, searching for treasure
Making memories for all to treasure.


FunandFood DCC

We had a blast at Benwell holiday club this week. With so many keen crafters we’ve been weaving, rock painting, making medals, dreamcatchers and bracelets by twisting wool. We also had lots of interest in tool use so we’ve been sawing, drilling, and splitting wood to make our campfire for cooking lunch. A big call for the return of pizza wraps, and we enjoyed pasta, noodles, garlic bread, and beans on toast. We have been snacking on fruit kebabs, crackers, carrots, and peppers and enjoyed a chocolate cupcake to round off our week together. Going to the meadow to play games was also a big hit as well as balancing on the slackline, creating dens, and swinging in the hammocks. As the children and young people so expertly do…they created their own games and so… the Meow Army was formed and cats and dragons became a theme too. Did we really enjoy all that in just four days? Yes!

Are you signed up for a holiday club this summer? Book through the link below:
https://www.stomping-grounds.org/

Department for Education
Newcastle City Council
StreetGames North East

As one of our young people moves on to a new school and a new future, the feedback from their parents has made us all cry...

To the whole team at Stomping Grounds,

Forest School has saved our daughter's life. That is not hyperbole, it is a statement of fact. You became involved as an alternative education provider at a point in her life when she had disconnected with almost everyone and everything, and saw no future. By the age of 12 she had been permanently excluded by the compulsory education system. One day we sat with a headteacher, a SENCO and a deputy head while they calmly told us that she wasn't liked, she wasn't wanted there and even the teachers were afraid of her and it would be better if she could be somewhere else. They were tired of dealing with her 'persistent disruptive behaviour'. There was no curiosity about whether or not she might have special needs, she was just seen as delinquent - unmanageable and intrinsically bad. The exclusion was brutal and the rejection nearly killed her. She spiralled into increasingly risky behaviour, putting her life at risk over and over again. Instead of dealing with endless calls from a school about her behaviour, we found ourselves dealing with police, with social workers and with the youth justice system. Our expectations went from thinking she would have a bright future in a job she loved, to thinking that we would have succeeded if we could just keep her out of a young offenders' institution. And later, even that seemed an unrealistic dream. We just went to bed each night thinking: if we can just keep her alive another day, just another day.

Nobody could reach her. Not the crisis team, the psychologist, the police, the social workers - nobody could break through. Each day she added new layers of trauma to the rejection. Feeling herself an outcast she attached herself to dangerous people who exploited her. She was attacked repeatedly. In desperation we remembered the time, just coming out of lockdown, when she was 10 and when we had no idea what lay ahead, and she had enjoyed forest school every Saturday morning. So we called you and asked if there was any possibility that one of those group leaders could work with her and you said that you could help. At first she wouldn't even get out of the car at the woods, so Stomping Grounds came to us and met her in the garden. She wouldn't make eye contact. Sometimes she wouldn't turn up at all. But he would make the fire and sit there until she was ready to engage. Over the weeks, months and two years that followed, she healed. The forest became a place of safety and peace. She discovered she was dexterous and talented and had a particular affinity for working with wood. She trusted more teachers. She made friends. Along the way she also discovered that she has ADHD - quite strikingly, it turns out - and that she also has Dyslexia.

Recovery is not linear and simple. There were times when things really were starting to feel resolved - and then, out of the blue, she would fall down again, plunging off the cliff into risk and darkness. But each time, Stomping Grounds were there, supporting her, supporting us, and doing so with an incredibly high level of knowledge about special needs, trauma, learning and child development. The learning environment you have created is deeply underpinned by a celebration of difference. There is no pathologising and stigmatising in the woods. The trees don't exclude. The forest doesn't require scapegoats to function. Your understanding of safeguarding is superb - it goes way beyond the tick-box and back-covering approach that is so prevalent in many education settings. You really, really care about the young people with whom you work. And all of this is underpinned with love. Nobody talks about love in mainstream education, but it is there for anyone who wants to look at Stomping Grounds. You encourage a love of nature and out of that comes a love for each other.

So now she has grown and is ready to return to school. She is happy, confident and excited about her future. School will be different this time round. She has the all important EHCP, which has been informed by the forest school team who know her, and Stomping Grounds has liaised with the SENCO so everything is set up for a successful transition. This time there will be no pretending that she doesn't need extra support and she will be doing a curriculum based on making and the outdoors, so the legacy of Stomping Grounds will continue. You mended what compulsory education broke. You are incredible at what you do. Please keep doing it so that other casualties of the school system can live again too.

Have you managed to book onto any holiday clubs yet?

At Dukes Hagg, Moor Rd, Prudhoe NE42 5PA. From 9am to 3pm for ages 5-12.

We have 6 weeks worth of dates to choose from!
July Dates:
22nd-24th, 29th-31st

August Dates:
1st-2nd, 5th-9th, 12th-16th, 19th-23rd, 27th-30th.

Book via the QR code or by going to: https://www.stomping-grounds.org/

Thank you dan Finnstalls for donating this timber wood after what happened to our site on Sunday. This act of service is a beautiful reminder that community is everything 🫶

We had an awesome walk with a group including local residents and wildlife enthusiasts at Gateshead Riverside Park last week. We were joined by Rinke Vinkenoog, an ecologist from and an Undergraduate in Environmental Science, Lekshmi Vijay . They wowed us with knowledge of insects and wading birds we spotted by the Tyne. Rinke caught a Common Carder Bee and our young atendee spotted a 2-spot ladybird. We watched a beautiful curlew, feeding on the shore with its iconic curved beak. The group also got stuck into some litter picking, filling 3 bags of rubbish around a bench that is part of the sculpture trail in the park. You can find out more about the trail as part of the Tyne Derwent Way, the wider programme around the work we're doing at Gateshead Riverside Park to establish a forest school. We finished at The Staiths Cafe who supported the event by providing delicious free drinks for the group. Thanks to them and everyone who came along!

Our next event is a well-being walk on Wed 31 July at 9.30, meeting at the Rose St park entrance, just past the Teams Family Hub. No need to book.

Photos description: 2-spot Ladybird, Rinke shows us the bee, Ben hunts for insects, a great team litter pick.

Our 2nd Cohort of Reframing Autism finished last weekend, and what a project this has been! We're excited to share with you some feedback from these wonderful sessions soon. The sessions bring together therapists, lived experience local businesses, advocacy and Forest School to support families and young people who are recently diagnosed or on the pathway, to ReFrame neurodivergence, moving away from a medical and pathologised model to a social model of inclusivity, acceptance and advocacy.

With thanks to Sir James Knott Trust and The National Lottery Community Fund for supporting this project.

We will be releasing details of our 3rd cohort, to start in September, soon.

🌲FREE Family Forest Days 🐞🌲

Do you have an adopted or looked after child/children?
Are you looking for ways the whole family can enjoy time in nature?
Would you like a FREE opportunity for your children to try Forest School whilst you experience a relaxing guided Forest Bathing walk?

As part of the 🌳Thrive with Nature🌲 project funded by the National Lottery Community Fund we are collaborating with to offer families with adopted or looked after children this opportunity to connect, share and immerse in nature at their beautiful site in Dukes Hagg Wood, Prudhoe, Tyne & Wear.

Spending time in nature is good for us - for our children’s development and our overall health and wellbeing. Connecting with nature has been linked to a host of benefits including improved attention, lower stress and better mood.

The day will include:
🌱WELCOME
🌱ACTIVITIES: While the children stay at camp with the Stomping Grounds practitioners, adults will take a 2hr slow, guided Forest Bathing walk through the surrounding woods with Kirstie, from Through the Trees CIC
🌱LUNCH: We will all meet back at camp for lunch (families to bring their own packed lunches)
🌱FAMILY PLAY: For the final hour there will be options for families to play together, try creative activities, listen to a story and make snacks on the fire pit
🌱GOOD-BYE

Forest School is a child-centred learning process, providing learner inspired, hands-on experiences in the natural environment.

Forest bathing or 'Shinrin-yoku' emerged in Japan and is the practice of immersing yourself in nature in a mindful way using your senses. This practice can lead to an enhanced connection with nature and potentially a deeply relaxed state.

Everyone will receive a drink and campfire snack towards the end of the session.

BOOK NOW: Dates available Saturday 3rd August & 28th September. Spaces are limited to 10 adults and 20 children for each date so we recommend booking early using the QR code or:

3rd August: https://bookwhen.com/stompinggrounds/e/ev-sizm-20240803100000
28th September: https://bookwhen.com/stompinggrounds/e/ev-sa1a-20240928100000

Job Vacancy Available.

We are looking to expand our team! Are you a dedicated and passionate Early Years Educator looking for a new challenge? Stomping Grounds are looking for the best in the North to join their small but mighty team.