Deep forest-school knowledge
Ratios, supported risk, the FSA's six principles and what they mean on a wet Tuesday, from someone who trains other leaders.
The people behind the app
Built by a forest-school trainer and an engineer who got tired of paper.
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 25 years building software used by millions.
What we each bring
Forest school and software.
Software engineering
Software that works offline and keeps children's data secure, built to the standards behind platforms used by millions of people.
Who we are
Sarah and Paul
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 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. The app is built around what she 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
Paul Allington
Software engineer & forest school leader
Paul has spent 25 years 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 builds his own SaaS products.
He's a forest school leader himself, and uses the app in the same woods Sarah does.
What he brings
- 25 years building production software in .NET
- Platforms trusted by millions of users
- Offline-first, security & data-protection by design
- 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 you
Made by forest-school people.
Built by a trainer
Risk-benefit, ratios, dynamic risk, learning journeys and the FSA principles are all in the app, the way Sarah teaches them.
Works with no signal
The app runs on your phone with no signal and syncs when you're back in range.
Your data stays yours
Safeguarding concerns are visible only to your designated lead, not to general staff and not to us. Children's data stays inside your forest school, 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 one app for the whole session, that works with cold fingers and no signal. A booking becomes a place on the register, the register carries its risk assessment, and what she notices in the woods becomes the observation. It's the tool we wished she'd had, and the practitioner account is free.
Come and try the thing we built.
Set your forest school up free for 30 days, no card needed.