Book a forest school programme for you, your friends and their children
We’ve run a lot of parents and tots forest school programmes. This is where a program of sessions lead into the next as opposed to our one off taster session events and birthday parties. We’ve sadly found in recent times that despite advertising, these sessions rarely get the uptake required to break even. We receive a huge amount of interest but there are regular clashes with other local parents and tots sessions such as messy play, cheap soft play offers and so on.
From our experience and from other forest school providers it takes a good 2 years to build up a regular slot and a community to reach a point where it pays for itself. To bypass this we think there’s a market for existing parents and tots communities to buy an off the shelf programme at a time that suits them. This has a number of advantages over ‘drop-in’ style parents and tots sessions:-
Toddler’s already know the other children and adults.
Parents can agree a theme for the programme - we love fairies but maybe a different theme (bush craft, wildlife, a particular story) is more what you and your friends are about.
Parents can tweak a session theme or activity (e.g. more fairy stories , less games, can we have more fire time etc.)
Parents can tweak the programme length 1 session taster, programme of 6, continuous, in holidays?
Parents can choose a good time, day and venue (see our forest schools) rather than try to fit in. That might include making a day of it or stretching to 3 hours. You can have a programme at one wood or try a selection if you’re willing to travel.
We can upgrade the usual just a snack to full on campfire food. Every week or final session feast? See our food here!
The price per child rate means parents can invite other families as and when. This usually happens when parents start to make friends from other meet-ups.
Parents can swap childcare and mix and match to fit in with their needs. We’ve all been there when you need to be somewhere else and as you all know each other you might arrange for a trusted mum of another child to take over. btw we require parental supervision so its important you entrust care to a friend or relative rather than just drop your child off.
For us it means we’re not second guessing what else is on locally, we’re naturally avoiding competition with other small businesses and charities, and we have a core group of children and families that lets the tots sessions fly.
So how much?
We think we can deliver a session term time week day session for just £8 a child (parents free of course) but we need a minimum of 8 children. We can go for smaller groups but the price may have to creep up to cover our costs. That includes:
2 hours play - usually an hour and then fire time
base camp activities - hammocks, stream (lumb brook), bounce net (not lumb brook)
A snack - let us know if you want a campfire meal and we can agree a price (usually up to £12 per child)
Hot drinks - tea, fresh coffee, hot chocolate in Winter and cold drinks -water/cordial in Summer
How do we book?
We recommend you moot the idea to friends and family and have a day/time in mind. If your friends aren’t sure why not book one taster session to give it a try to win over anyone who’s maybe a bit worried about being outdoors.
Get in touch rawdon@fairforestschool.com with your proposed dates and we’ll check the diary and come back with options. If you need more info or wan’t to discuss possibilities then just give us a call at 07799 321 849 or message us Fairy Forest School on facebook.