Session planning
Planning isn't a form you fill in once. It's a loop: you plan, you observe what the children actually do, you adapt, you review, and that review shapes the next plan. The Forest School app is built around that cycle, so the work you do at the kitchen table flows straight into the session in the woods, then back out as a reflection that improves the week after.
Plan a single taster, a half-term block or a full term of weekly sessions in one pass. Set the dates once and every session in the block is laid out for you, ready to open on the morning, with no copying the same plan twelve times into a diary.
Each plan carries its own woodland site, a capacity cap and the adult-to-child ratio you're working to. Fill in the numbers as you plan and the app keeps you honest, so you never turn up over capacity or short of leaders for the group you've booked.
Pull the risk-benefit assessments you need from your library and stack them onto the plan: fire pit, tool use, the site itself. They're snapshotted to that session, so the day runs against exactly what you signed off, not a version that drifted afterwards.
The cycle, built in
Anyone who's done the Level 3 Forest School Leader award knows the FSA cycle isn't a one-way form: you plan a session, observe what the children actually do with it, adapt in the moment, and review afterwards so the next plan is sharper. Most software models the first step and forgets the rest. The Forest School app threads the whole loop together: your plan opens as the live session, your observations and dynamic risk notes are captured as the day unfolds, and your end-of-session reflection feeds straight back into the next plan. The learning compounds week on week instead of evaporating on the drive home.
Tuesday Toadstools · Bluebell Wood
Each week carries its site, ratio and stacked risk-benefit assessments.
When the session morning comes, the plan you wrote is today's session. Open it in the field and it works offline, with no signal needed under the canopy. The booked or group register auto-populates from the plan, so the children who signed up are already there to mark present. Your stacked risk-benefit assessments ride along with the session, ready to check off, and the dynamic risk log is there for the hazards a real wood throws up on the day. You plan once, then everything you need is in your hand when you're stood by the fire circle.
At the end of the day, while it's fresh, jot the session reflection: what worked, what you'd change, the child-led thread you want to follow next week. That's the review step of the cycle, and it doesn't sit in a notebook that never gets reopened: it surfaces against the next session in the block, so when you plan the following week you're planning from what actually happened, not from a blank page. Adapt the site, the activities or the ratios, and the loop closes the way the FSA cycle is meant to.
The session that really landed, the den-building afternoon, the autumn fire-lighting block, doesn't have to be rebuilt from scratch. Save a plan as a reusable template and drop it into a new term in seconds, RBAs and all, then tweak it for the group in front of you. Schedule a whole term ahead from plans you trust, and spend your evenings outdoors instead of at the laptop.
Every leader, assistant and volunteer gets a free practitioner account. Only the setting running the sessions needs a plan, and one plan covers the whole team and every session you schedule. A freelance leader is a one-person setting on Solo (£15 a month); a setting with staff is on Team (£29 a site), and every plan starts with 14 days free, no card needed. See full pricing.
Planning questions
Yes. Schedule a one-off taster, a half-term block or a full term of weekly sessions in a single pass, each with its own site, capacity and stacked risk-benefit assessments. Every session in the block is then ready to open on the day. See scheduling a term ahead for how the dates and the register tie together.
It does. The plan you wrote becomes today's session in the field, working offline with the register already populated and your stacked RBAs attached. You're not re-entering anything: you plan once and run from the same record. New to planning the forest school way? Our guide to planning a session walks through it.
Your end-of-session reflection is the review step of the plan-observe-adapt-review cycle. It surfaces against the next session in the block, so when you plan the following week you're building on what the children actually did: child-led, observation-driven, exactly as the Level 3 award teaches.
Set your setting up free for 14 days, no card needed. Plan a session, run it in the woods, reflect, and let the loop carry you into the next one.