Forest school pedagogy, overthought with affection and mud.
Lewis and Wem talk through forest school pedagogy in rambling, affectionate conversation, arguing over what counts as a loose part and when an adult should step into play. Books on trees and games, a community woodland guest and stray animal trivia all come back to one question: what purposeful outdoor practice looks like.
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The Forest School Podcast is a running conversation between Lewis and Wem about forest school pedagogy, and it states its priorities up front. Thinking comes before crafts made for display, purpose before pretty resources, and inclusion is meant as practice rather than a buzzword. They also promise to overthink the trivial, and they keep that promise. Take loose parts. In 'Ludobotany II: Loose Parts' the pair stop mid-flow to ask whether elder is a loose part at all, or a resource that only becomes one once it is harvested. They also ask whether being good for cooking is really a use, an affordance, and not the point of loose parts. Ludobotany is a thread they come back to: their conversation on 'The Score by Thi Nguyen' ends with a request to talk about pine cones, conkers and acorns next. Books give several conversations their spine. The Thi Nguyen book leads to talk of games, of affordances and of objects as agents in play. It also raises a practical puzzle: how an adult can admire someone's inventive route around a tree without turning it into praise. A show-and-tell of tree books moves through the history of forestry, including Ralph Whitlock's Historic Forests of England and its old photographs of charcoal burning, and the hosts try to describe what they are holding for anyone listening rather than watching. The hardest material is about judgement. In 'Play Prophecies' the two imagine watching play that looks military, or where someone seems to be oppressing others, and ask whether everyone is a willing participant and when stepping in protects everybody's needs. It is careful talk, and it also asks the hosts to be kind to themselves about their own intentions. Authenticity gets a candid airing too. In 'Expectations VS Reality in 2026' one of them says that doing forest school full time leaves no room for a bag of masks. People seeing jokes fall flat, or a practitioner plate-spinning when someone jumps from somewhere too high, may be worth more than polish. A guest widens the lens in 'Community Woods with Susan Barker from Avon Needs Trees'. With Lewis away, Wem talks with Susan about a planting season that runs from November to March while trees are dormant, bare-root whips from the nursery, reusable cable ties for tree guards and year-round care sessions with volunteers. The hosts had met the group at a Royal Forestry Society award ceremony. Around all this sits plenty of cheerful noise: ants evolving from wasps, a long-held hope of finding a long-tailed tit's nest, mud in every possible place and gravel hauled for a pond. Listeners are invited to send voicemails through the show's website, in one case with conker-style games from other parts of the world. It suits a listener who would rather have their practice questioned than be handed a list of activities.
Made for: Suits a listener who leads outdoor play or learning, or is curious about forest school, and who likes hearing practice questioned out loud by two people happy to follow a tangent.
What sets it apart: Instead of activity ideas, it argues definitions and ethics: what makes a loose part, when to step into play and how to admire without praising. The tangents about mud and animal trivia stay in.
Wem Southerden & Lewis Ames have run Forest School and training centre Children of the Forest since 2017. The Forest School Podcast was born when they wondered if their daily wafflechats and reflections about pedagogy, play and nature connection might be of interest to others.The podcast aims to inform and support educators, parents, outdoor and play practitioners and anyone interested in nature and the outdoors.Through book reviews – interviews with experts, practitioners and authors – sharing our experience as educators and business owners – deep dives on fascinating topics –
A child won't sit for story time; you'll wonder whose problem that really is.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A candid review of outdoor-learning ideals meeting the messy, adaptive work they require.
Forest school is treated here without the familiar woodland halo. Lewis and Wem Southerner test the belief that being outdoors is automatically beneficial against weather, shifting plans, and the practical need to make different kinds of space for different people.
A thoughtful look at when woodland materials become loose parts, and what learners need from them.
The Forest School Podcast opens on a startling echidna fact, then turns toward the more useful question underneath: when does a natural material become something people can play with, rather than simply something with a known use?
A muddy, playful conversation about noticing and valuing creativity when players find their own way through play.
The Forest School Podcast turns a conversation about gameplay into a thoughtful look at how educators might notice creative beauty in action. Lewis and Wem Southerner focus on the moment someone finds an unexpected route around a tree, then open that up through post-humanist and…
A grounded look at the patient care that follows planting day.
Community tree planting is framed here as a long-term act of care rather than a single feel-good day out. With Wem hosting solo, Susan Barker from Avon Needs Trees sets out the rhythm of the work: the main planting push runs from November to March, while trees are dormant, and…
A measured conversation about when adult alarm should shape children's play, and when it should wait.
Lewis and Wem Southerner begin with ants, wasps, and a child's wish for pet ants, then move into the more uneasy territory of how adults read children's play.
Thirteen tree books lead into a reflective conversation on woodland history, reading, charcoal burning, and forest-school thinking.
Tree books give this single-episode review its path into a wider forest-school conversation, as Lewis and Wem Southerner work through 13 titles and consider what each one opens up.
Saskatchewan conversations about learning, playing and surviving outside.
Héctor and Beto dissect Mexican grammar, slang, and news in native-speed Spanish conversations.
Small habit changes meet hands-on AI experiments.
The hosts discuss autistic play with author Max Alexander, exploring pedagogy and nature connection.
Host Lewis Ames interviews Dr.
The hosts discuss an interview with a journalist about her critical experience with Forest School, exploring marketing challenges and pedagogical communication.
The Forest School Podcast's 'Ep 242 - Expectations VS Reality in 2026' starts with Lewis describing a long-tailed tit nest in his own garden, then uses that spring discovery to pivot into forest school practice.
The Forest School Podcast's 'Ep 241 - Ludobotany II: Loose Parts' opens with an echidna fact check, a Google search, and Lewis reacting to a quadruplicated penis.
The Forest School Podcast episode “Ep 240 - The Score by Thi Nguyen” examines how games use voluntary obstacles to make struggle and agency meaningful.
Wem hosts solo while Lewis is away, and Susan Barker from Avon Needs Trees explains how a second-career move from academia into horticulture led her into community woodland work.
Lewis opens with the claim that ants evolved from wasps, then the pair trade details about cow killer ants, leafcutter ants, fungus farming, and aphid milk.
Lewis and Wem Southerner examine 13 tree books, including Thomas Pakenham's Tree Hunters and Susan Simard's Finding the Mother Tree, to connect reading with forest-school practice.
Lewis and Wem Southerner examine The Land, a 2016 documentary about an adventure playground in Wrexham, North Wales, after finding it on the Boston Children's Museum's YouTube page.
Lewis and Wem Southerner interview Dr Shelley Newstead about playwork history, the PARS model, and its relationship with forest school.
Lewis and Wem Southerner examine tree climbing through branch collars, branch spacing, tree species, and the inherited rules used in forest-school practice.
The Forest School Podcast episode 233 features Lewis, Wem Southerner, and Lily Horseman debating who can fail at forest school and whether explicit demands such as “look after yourself, look after each other, look after the woods” create avoidable pass-fail conditions.
The Forest School Podcast episode “Ep 232 - Biodiversity on our Bodies!” examines a Finnish preschool study involving 43 daycare centres and transplanted forest floor.
Lewis and Wem Southerner discuss Lewis's eight-petal planning board and The World Designs for Children, a book about Japanese nursery architecture.
Lewis and Wem Southerner discuss Amy McNee’s Stop Fucking Around and Make Something as a framework for examining creativity, failure, and celebration in Forest School.
Mel Harrison of Kinder Education explains a plan to save Ringsfield Hall, an educational community asset operating since 1971, through a multi-generational “living school.” Kinder Education would bring alternative provision, elders, families, early-years learners, and specialist education into the hall’s 14-bedroom Victorian house and 14 acres of land.
The Forest School Podcast interviews Max Alexander, author of The Joys and Shapes of Autistic Play, about creating flexible ways to describe autistic play.
The Forest School Podcast episode “Ep 227 - Inconvenient Resilience” examines four resilience types named in Luby McNamara’s Cultural Emergence: recovery, adaptive, transformative, and spreading resilience.
The Forest School Podcast interviews Nicole DeRoshi, author of Bog Fashion, about reconstructing Bronze and Iron Age clothing from archaeological evidence and craft practice.
Dr.
The Forest School Podcast’s Lewis interviews Melissa, the Modern Mortician, about green burial, water cremation, human composting, and end-of-life choices.
The hosts discuss a TV program about woods while recording in a forest, blending informal chat with reflections on outdoor education.