What's in the app
Plan at the desk, then run the session on your phone in the woods with no signal. The record of the day builds as you go.
No signal needed
The field app saves every register, risk note, observation and incident on your phone as you tap, with or without signal. When you're back in range it uploads on its own, and the status shows you whether everything has uploaded.
Supported risk · the third principle
When the woods change, tap the hazard at the next pause, the control you put in place and the benefit you protected ("kept the stream play, added 1:1 supervision"), and say when it happened. Writing down what the child gets is how you keep saying yes to the fire, the tools and the water. It takes a few seconds with gloves on, and nothing in the log can be changed afterwards.
Sharps & fire
Count the knives, saws and peelers out as they leave the bag and back in as they return. A sharp that doesn't come back sits at the bottom of the day-log, in red, until it's found. Fire lit and fire out are logged the same way, with what you had to hand. Fire and tool assessments stack onto the session and every leader signs them, and the fire circle and tool area are on the daily site check before a single child arrives.
Children's privacy
A photo of a child without photo consent is kept for your own records and never shared: no family sees it, and it stays out of learning journeys, reports and your website. Consent is checked again every time a family opens a photo. Photos taken in the app go straight into the session record, not into anyone's camera roll, so no child's photo is left on a staff phone. Safeguarding concerns are visible to your designated lead only: never to general staff, and never to us.
Holistic development
Tap who it's about, tap which of the FSA's five development areas you saw (confidence, creativity, resilience, independence, wellbeing), then say it as a voice note or write a line, and add a photo. There's a box for their exact words, and one for what they want to do next, which lands on their next session's plan. Every observation joins the child's own timeline, so the picture builds across the term.
Planning at the desk
Build reusable risk-benefit assessments once, then stack the right ones onto each session, and they're on your phone in the field. Keep each site's emergency action plan (grid reference, nearest A&E, access) where you'll actually need it, and let a session start from a plan or from nothing when the day just happens.
A long-term process · the first principle
A group is the cohort that comes back week after week, and it gets a dashboard of its own: this term's dates, who holds a place, how it's selling, and what they've been up to. Set the term up once inside the group (dates, prices, deposit, when booking opens) and every date is scheduled. The rules the children wrote on their first day go in as their charter, in their words and spelling, with a photo of the sheet they made. It's on every session, readable in the wood with no signal.
Families & places
Share one link and families book a place with just their email, with no app or account. Set the capacity and the rest go on a waiting list. When you open the session in the woods, the children who booked are already on the register. Your terms and conditions are the last step, signed before the place is confirmed, and every booking keeps the version the parent saw.
Your families
Families sign in with a code from their email, with no password to remember. They see their child's bookings and next session under your logo and cover photo. The moments you share land there too, with the photos and the child's own words, and we email them when there's something new.
Written as you go
The review at the end shows which development areas got noticed today and which didn't, then asks what went well and what to plan next time. It asks again if you close the day with a sharp still out. Every session becomes a PDF: register and ratios, the weather decision, every dynamic risk, incidents, medication, tools and fire, and your reflection. It builds while you work, so there's no evening write-up.
Phone and desk
The Forest School App runs offline on your phone or tablet in the woods, and in any browser for the admin: planning, bookings, children, consents and reports. Both show the same records. Help sits inside the app, next to the page it explains.
The same guides our customers use, with screenshots from the app. No account needed to read them.
Real sessions at Nature of Learning forest school in Essex, photography used with their kind permission.
Set your forest school up in two minutes. Free for 30 days, no card needed.