Deep forest-school knowledge
Ratios, risk-benefit, the FSA's six principles, the records an inspector actually wants, held by someone who trains other leaders, not read off a blog the night before.
The people behind the app
Built by a forest-school trainer and an engineer who got tired of paper.
Most "forest school" software is club-management software with the words painted on, written by people who've never lit a fire in the rain. We're the opposite. The Forest School app comes from two of us at one kitchen table: one who has spent a decade running and teaching forest school, and one who has spent two decades building software used by millions. Deep field knowledge, serious engineering, and not a spreadsheet in sight.
Why this combination matters
Two worlds that rarely meet.
Serious software engineering
Offline-first, secure, properly built to the same standards behind platforms used by millions of people, brought to a one-person forest school in the woods.
Who we are
Two of us. One app.
The practitioner
Sarah Allington
Forest School practitioner & FSA-endorsed trainer
Sarah came to the woods the long way round. She was a molecular biologist with a PhD, then a qualified teacher, before discovering over a decade ago that children learn best with mud on their hands and space to grow. She now runs Nature of Learning and trains the next generation of forest-school leaders.
She knows this work from the inside: the cold-fingered register, the dynamic risk call made on the spot, the observation you mustn't lose. Every screen in the app is shaped by what she actually needs on a wet Thursday morning.
A few of her credentials
- FSA-endorsed Forest School trainer
- Level 3 Forest School Practitioner
- Therapeutic Skills for Outdoor Leaders
- PGCE & Qualified Teacher Status · PhD Molecular Biology
The engineer
Paul Allington
Software engineer & SaaS builder
Paul has spent the best part of two decades building software in .NET, from NHS healthcare systems to platforms serving millions of members. He's CTO at a membership platform used across hundreds of facilities, and he builds SaaS products that get out of your way.
He's also training to become a forest-school leader himself, so the offline sync, the data safety and the inspection-ready records aren't abstract requirements to him. They're the things he'll lean on standing in the same woods Sarah does.
What he brings
- ~20 years building production software in .NET
- Platforms trusted by millions of users
- Offline-first, security & data-protection by design
- Training as a Forest School leader
“Every learner arrives with their own roots. My job is to give them the light and space to grow.”Sarah, on why she teaches the way she does
What that means for your setting
Made by forest-school people, built to last.
It speaks your language
Risk-benefit, ratios, dynamic risk, learning journeys, the FSA principles: all built in by a trainer, so you're never bending generic booking software to fit the woods.
It works where you do
Engineered offline-first by someone who's built systems at scale: the whole app runs on your phone with no signal and syncs itself the moment you're back in range.
Your data stays yours
Safeguarding concerns stay locked to your designated lead: never general staff, never us. Children's data stays inside your setting, and is never sold or mined.
Why we built it
Sarah was running her own sessions on a patchwork of half-fitting tools: a booking website here, an observation app there, risk assessments in Word, the register on a soggy clipboard. Every join between them was a place where something got dropped, and none of it worked once she was off the path and out of signal.
So we built the thing that didn't exist: one connected system for the whole arc of a session, designed for cold fingers and no bars. A booking becomes a register; a register carries its risk assessment; the day becomes observations and an inspection-ready record. It's the tool we wished she'd had, and now it's free for every practitioner to use.
Come and try the thing we built.
Set your forest school up free for 14 days, no card needed. Built by forest-school people, for forest-school people.