Summer forest school activities

Running summer well

Summer gives you the thing you're always short of: time. Sessions can run long, projects can be finished rather than abandoned, and the shelter that took three weeks in the wet gets lived in. It's the right term for the ambitious build, the long game, the thing you couldn't attempt in February.

The canopy changes the site completely. Places that were open in winter are now green tunnels, sight lines are shorter, and a group can be genuinely hard to see. Boundaries that worked in the bare months want re-walking and often re-drawing, and headcounts want doing more often, not less.

The two things that actually go wrong in summer are heat and water — children not drinking enough, and fire risk on dry ground. Both are dull and both are entirely preventable. Build drinking into the rhythm rather than offering it, and re-read your fire risk-benefit for a dry August rather than the wet October you wrote it in.

• Water is the whole plan: more than you think, offered on a rhythm rather than on request.
• Full canopy shortens sight lines. Re-walk the boundary and headcount more often, not less.
• Re-read your fire risk-benefit for dry ground. August is not the site you assessed in October.
• Use the long sessions for the build you can't finish in winter. Summer is for the ambitious project.
• Ticks, nettles and biting insects are the summer first-aid reality. Say so to families up front.