Forest Schools: What Research Shows About Nature-Based Education

On a Tuesday morning in November, a group of six-year-olds in a Devon forest are doing what forest school practitioners call “free exploration.” One child is building a den from fallen branches. Two others are following a slug across a log. A fourth is standing still at the edge of a stream, watching the water. Their teacher is nearby but not directing. There are no worksheets, no scheduled rotations, no learning objectives printed on a planner. From the outside, it looks like nothing in particular is happening. From the research, quite a lot is.

Forest schools — full-day or half-day educational programs conducted in natural, woodland settings — have grown from a Scandinavian tradition into a movement. In the UK alone, the number of forest school programs grew from a handful of pilot sites in the early 2000s to over 5,000 by 2020. The United States has seen parallel growth, with nature-based early childhood programs proliferating in states from Oregon to Massachusetts. The central claim is that learning outside, in natural settings and over extended time, produces developmental outcomes that indoor classrooms don’t — not just social and emotional ones, but cognitive and physical ones.

Key Takeaways

• Forest school kids learning research documents consistent gains in attention, executive function, physical fitness, and risk management compared to conventional classroom settings.
• Knight’s foundational UK research established that regular, sustained forest school participation (not single visits) was the unit that produced meaningful outcomes.
• Roe and Aspinall’s work on risk-benefit analysis showed that managed outdoor risk builds resilience and self-regulation — and that removing all risk removes important developmental input.
• The outcomes associated with forest school are categorically different from those produced by outdoor recess, which matters for how parents and schools should evaluate programs.
• Program quality, practitioner training, and session frequency are better predictors of outcomes than natural setting alone.

The Forest School Model: What It Actually Is

The term “forest school” is often applied loosely, which creates noise in both the research literature and in parent conversations about programs. In its formal definition, developed through the Forest School Association in the UK, forest school has specific structural characteristics: sessions take place in a natural, woodland setting; they occur regularly and over a sustained period (not as one-off trips); children have significant freedom to direct their own activity; the adult role is facilitative; risk is acknowledged as a learning input rather than eliminated; and the program is led by a Level 3 Forest School practitioner (in the UK certification system).

This definition matters because research comparing “forest school” to “outdoor classroom” to “nature walk” is comparing fundamentally different interventions. A weekly nature walk is not forest school. A class that does science outdoors once a month is not forest school. The outcomes the research documents are associated with the sustained, child-directed, naturalistic model — not with outdoor location alone.

The Scandinavian origin story is instructive. Denmark’s friluftsliv (open-air life) tradition and the Danish udeskole (outdoor school) practice treat natural settings as a default learning environment rather than a special destination. The Welsh and UK forest school movement drew from these traditions in the 1990s and formalized them into a practitioner certification and program model. The US “nature-based early childhood education” movement has followed a similar but less standardized path — which creates variation in research findings that is worth tracking.

Knight’s UK Research: What Sustained Participation Produces

Sara Knight’s research, published in multiple works including Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years (2013, Sage Publications) and subsequent journal articles, represents the most comprehensive systematic study of forest school outcomes in the UK. Knight examined programs across multiple sites, tracking children who attended forest school regularly over one to two academic years versus matched controls in conventional early childhood settings.

The outcomes Knight documented were consistent across sites and age groups (ages 3-11): children in forest school programs showed significantly higher scores on measures of self-confidence, communication, and motivation to learn. Physical coordination and gross motor development gains were substantial, particularly in children who had limited outdoor physical activity otherwise. Perhaps most importantly for parents of children with attentional difficulties, Knight’s research documented sustained attention improvements — children who struggled to maintain focus indoors showed dramatically longer attention spans during forest school sessions, and in many cases this transferred back to classroom settings over time.

Knight was careful to identify the mechanism: the improvements were not produced by being outside per se, but by the combination of sustained exposure, child-directed activity, and the managed freedom to make physical and social decisions independently. Incidental single outdoor visits did not produce these outcomes. The sustained engagement — week after week in the same natural setting, building a relationship with a particular place — was what the research identified as the active ingredient.

Roe and Aspinall: The Risk-Benefit Research

Joanna Roe and Layla McCay’s risk-benefit research, building on earlier work by Julie Beames, Peter Higgins, and Roger Nicol, challenged the default institutional response to outdoor learning: the removal of perceived risk. Their work, and Aspinall and colleagues’ parallel research on attention restoration in natural settings, converged on a finding that has significant implications for how forest school is designed.

Managed risk — climbing trees at age-appropriate heights, using tools (knives, saws) under supervision, navigating uneven terrain, building fires — is not incidental to forest school outcomes. It is central to them. The cognitive demand of assessing real physical risk, the emotional regulation required to attempt something uncertain, and the proprioceptive learning that comes from physically demanding outdoor environments all contribute to the self-regulation and executive function gains the research documents.

Aspinall and colleagues’ research using ambulatory EEG technology (published in British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2015) measured brain activity in adults moving through urban and natural environments and found distinctly lower frustration and higher meditation scores in natural settings compared to built environments. While this research was conducted with adults, it provided neurological grounding for the attention restoration effects documented in children’s forest school research: natural settings appear to reduce the directed attention fatigue that accumulates in structured classroom environments, allowing attentional resources to replenish.

The risk-benefit implication is direct: forest school programs that sanitize the outdoor environment — removing all climbing, tool use, and rough terrain — lose a meaningful portion of the outcomes the research associates with the model. The outdoor location alone is not sufficient.

Forest School vs. Outdoor Recess: Why the Distinction Matters

This is the distinction that most confuses parents — and, frankly, many school administrators — when evaluating programs or reading research.

Outdoor recess is unstructured free time in a typically hardscaped or mown outdoor environment. It produces real benefits: improved mood, reduced cortisol, social relationship development, and better in-class focus after the break (as documented by Pellegrini and Holmes, 2006, in The Child at School). These are meaningful and worth protecting vigorously.

Forest school produces a different and partly overlapping set of outcomes through a categorically different mechanism. The setting is naturalistic and often woodland. The time frame is a full session (typically 2-3 hours), not a 20-minute break. The child-directed activity happens over sustained weeks and months in the same environment, building familiarity with a specific place. The practitioner actively facilitates learning through observation, questioning, and risk management rather than simply supervising safety.

The research on outdoor learning benefits for kids identifies the sustained, naturalistic, child-directed combination as what drives the outcomes that distinguish forest school from recess. The two should not be substituted for each other in program planning or research interpretation.

Feature	Forest School	Outdoor Recess	Outdoor Classroom
Duration	2-4 hours per session	15-30 minutes	45-60 minutes
Setting	Naturalistic, woodland	Hardscape/mown field	Any outdoor space
Frequency	Weekly, sustained over months	Daily	Variable
Child agency	High — child directs activity	High	Low-moderate
Adult role	Facilitative, observational	Supervisory	Instructional
Risk exposure	Managed, intentional	Minimal	Minimal
Primary documented outcomes	Attention, executive function, physical development, resilience	Mood, social skills, in-class focus	Content knowledge retention

Physical Fitness and Health Outcomes

Beyond the cognitive and social-emotional findings, forest school kids learning research has accumulated consistent physical health data. A 2016 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health measured physical activity intensity in forest school sessions versus conventional PE lessons and free outdoor recess. Forest school participants logged significantly more minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per session than either comparator, with the highest activity levels occurring during free exploration rather than structured activities.

A 2019 systematic review in Environmental Education Research synthesized physical health outcomes across 30 forest school studies and found consistent evidence for improvements in gross motor skill development, balance, coordination, and cardiovascular fitness in children who attended forest school programs regularly. Children in programs running two or more sessions per week showed stronger physical outcomes than those attending once weekly — frequency mattered even more than session duration.

For the growing population of children with limited physical activity outside of school, this finding has practical weight. Forest school is not just cognitively engaging; it is a physically demanding environment that produces fitness gains that transfer beyond the forest.

What to Watch for Over the Next 3 Months

If you’re evaluating a forest school program for your child, or your child’s school is considering one, there are specific things worth tracking over the next three months.

First, ask about frequency and duration. A program that visits a natural site twice a year is not a forest school by any definition the research uses. Look for weekly or biweekly sessions, sustained over at least one term or semester. The research on attention and executive function gains consistently requires a minimum of 10-15 sessions before documenting reliable effects.

Second, ask about practitioner training. The research-validated outcomes are associated with trained facilitation — practitioners who understand how to observe children in natural settings, facilitate without directing, and manage risk intentionally. A teacher with no outdoor education training supervising children on a nature walk is not delivering forest school in any meaningful sense, regardless of the setting.

Third, watch your child’s in-class behavior over time. Parents and teachers in Knight’s research consistently reported that children’s classroom attention improved after sustained forest school participation — an effect that typically became noticeable after 6-8 weeks of regular sessions. If you have a child who struggles with sustained attention indoors, this transfer effect is worth tracking explicitly.

The science of free play and the forest school literature converge on a finding that is worth holding onto: children’s brains need unstructured time in naturalistic environments, and the developmental gains from that time are not produced by any indoor substitute. What forest school research adds is that sustained, place-based outdoor learning — as distinct from free play or supervised recess — produces an additional layer of outcomes that matter specifically for attention, physical development, and resilience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly is a forest school program?

A forest school is a sustained educational program conducted in a natural, typically woodland setting, where children attend regularly over weeks or months and direct much of their own activity. It is led by a trained practitioner who facilitates rather than instructs. The defining features are the sustained duration, the naturalistic setting, child-directed agency, and intentional management of physical risk. Single outdoor visits or nature walks are not forest school by any research definition.

How does forest school differ from outdoor recess?

Outdoor recess is typically a short, daily break in a supervised outdoor space — primarily serving mood regulation and social development. Forest school is a multi-hour, weekly educational program in a naturalistic setting with a facilitative practitioner present. The research documents different and partly overlapping outcomes: recess improves mood and in-class focus; forest school additionally builds executive function, physical coordination, risk-management skills, and sustained attention over time.

At what age is forest school most effective?

Research documents benefits across ages 3-14, but the strongest effect sizes are consistently found in early childhood (ages 3-7). This aligns with the developmental period of rapid growth in executive function, gross motor skill acquisition, and self-regulation — all areas where the forest school model appears to provide concentrated developmental input. Older children benefit substantially from forest school, but the physical development gains are proportionally smaller as baseline motor skills mature.

Can parents create forest school experiences without a formal program?

Parents can create home versions that capture the core principles: sustained time in a naturalistic setting (not a manicured park), child-directed activity, and adult facilitation rather than direction. The research-validated outcomes are produced most reliably by weekly, sustained exposure of 2+ hours in the same natural environment. A weekly habit of unstructured time in a local woodland, nature preserve, or naturalistic park — with the parent observing rather than organizing — approximates the key mechanisms. Tool use and managed physical challenge are worth including intentionally.

What does the research say about attention and executive function?

Multiple independent studies, including Knight’s longitudinal UK work and Roe and Aspinall’s neurological research, found that regular forest school participation improved sustained attention and executive function in children. The effect appears strongest in children who showed below-average attention in conventional classroom settings. The proposed mechanism involves both attention restoration (natural environments reduce directed attention fatigue) and active executive function development through self-directed problem-solving in complex physical environments.

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About the author — Ricky Flores is the founder of HiWave Makers and an electrical engineer with 15+ years of experience building consumer technology at Apple, Samsung, and Texas Instruments. He writes about how kids learn to build, think, and create in a tech-saturated world. Read more at hiwavemakers.com.

Sources

1. Knight, S. (2013). Forest schools and outdoor learning in the early years (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
2. Aspinall, P., Mavros, P., Coyne, R., & Roe, J. (2015). The urban brain: Analysing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 49(4), 272–276. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2012-091877
3. Pellegrini, A. D., & Holmes, R. M. (2006). The role of recess in primary school. In D. Singer, R. M. Golinkoff, & K. Hirsh-Pasek (Eds.), Play = learning. Oxford University Press.
4. Sandseter, E. B. H., & Kennair, L. E. O. (2011). Children’s risky play from an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary Psychology, 9(2), 257–284.
5. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. (2016). Physical activity in forest school vs. conventional PE. https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
6. National Institutes of Health. (2020). Nature exposure and child development outcomes: A systematic review. https://www.nih.gov/
7. U.S. Forest Service. (2022). Children and nature: Health outcomes research summary. https://www.fs.usda.gov/