Forest School Training

Forest School Practitioner Training


Forest School Practitioner Level 3
– Next course starts 25 September 2024

Assisting Forest School Level 2 – Next course starts 25 September 2024

Outdoor Play Practitioner Level 2 – Next course starts 5th March 2025

Supporting Wellbeing in Nature Level 2 – Next course starts 11th September 2024

Campfire Cymru provides high quality, engaging forest school training including Forest School Practitioner Level 3, Assist at Forest School Level 2, Outdoor Play Practitioner Level 2, Outdoor Learning Level 1. Courses usually take place on our beautiful sister site, Halkyn Castle Woods in Flintshire, North East Wales. With 47 acres of mixed woodland and 3 purpose built training areas to choose from, our forest school practitioner training can’t help but demonstrate the benefits of learning and playing in the natural environment.

Campfire Training

As a social enterprise, we are a sustainable and flexible organisation operating on a not-for-profit basis. This means that much of the income we derive from running forest school training courses goes towards providing funded Forest School Programmes for families and training for parents and carers. When you do your training with Campfire Cymru, you know any profits we make will be used to empower people who face barriers to participation through outdoor activities.

Our Forest School & Outdoor Learning Training Programme, Campfire Training, offers a range of high quality, accredited Forest School Training, Outdoor Play & Learning courses. The courses are accredited by Agored Cymru (Open College Network Wales) and we are an associate trainer for Cambium Sustainable.

Courses available include: Forest School Practitioner Level 3, Forest School Assistant Level 2, Outdoor Play Practitioner Level 2 and Outdoor Learning Level 1. We run Forest School training throughout the year and exciting new courses are being planned all the time.

To learn more about our up and coming courses and book your place please visit online booking or contact Becks on 07989501335 info@campfire.cymru.

We also run CPD (Continuous Professional Development) courses for qualified Forest School Practitioners and others who work outdoors. You can find and book all our courses here.

Feedback from recent training:
“Real confidence booster to learn new skills with tools and cooking that can be used with the children.”
“I am inspired”
“In 20 years of teaching, this is the best course I have been on”

These are the principles of Forest School agreed by the Forest School Association in 2003 and they offer an ideal view of the Forest School process.

Forest School:
➔ is a long-term process of regular sessions, rather than a one-off or infrequent visits; the cycle of planning, observation, adaptation and review links each session.
➔ takes place in a woodland or natural environment to support the development of a relationship between the learner and the natural world.
➔ uses a range of learner-centred processes to create a community for being, development and learning.
➔ aims to promote the holistic development of all those involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.
➔ offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves.
➔ is run by qualified Forest School practitioners who continuously maintain and develop their professional practice.


Campfire Cymru’s Forest School Training programmes and Campfire Training Courses adhere to these principles. Our Forest School Practitioner training Level 3 shows you how to bring these principles into action in your own setting. We also recognise the experience and abilities participants and trainees bring with them and that there are many valuable outdoor & group experiences as well as Forest School. With this in mind, we also provide Outdoor Play Training Level 2, this course empowers you to get outside and create the most exciting opportunities and the ideal environment for children’s play. There is huge value in taking a class outdoors to learn about mini-beasts; to draw inspiration from nature for art or poetry; to understand maths through leaves, twigs and the rings on tree stumps; to play games or let off steam between lessons. Most children so not have the freedom to play outside in nature, our Outdoor Play Practitioner and Forest School courses will remind you of the benefits of playing in nature, supported by research and theories and introduce you to a multitude of ways to improve access to play. You will gain understanding of the need for innate play for children and young people and how to support this in your setting.

To learn more about our up and coming courses and book your place please visit online booking or contact Becks on 07989501335 info@campfire.cymru.

using an axe