Nurseries & early years
Observations scribbled on a wet notepad, typed up at nine o'clock at night, then typed up again into your nursery system. Here you write it once, in the woods, on your phone, with no signal, and tag it to confidence, creativity, resilience, independence and wellbeing as you watch.
Catch the moment while it's fresh: a photo, a voice note or a line of what she actually did, and a tap on the development areas it speaks to. It's on the child's journey before you've walked back to the gate. No notepad to decipher, no evening spent typing up a morning you half remember.
Mark the register and the ratio of children to adults updates as children arrive and adults come and go. You know where you stand before anyone walks into the trees.
A photo of a child without photo consent is never shared. It stays in your own records, and never reaches her family, a report or your website. Allergies, medical notes and who may collect her come from the parent's own portal, and they're on your phone before she arrives.
Out in the woods
It assumes a room, wifi and a keyboard, so the forest school morning gets written on paper and then again at a desk, from memory, at the end of a long day. Here the phone in your pocket is the record. It works with no signal and syncs when you're back in range. What you write in the woods is the observation, tagged to the FSA's five development areas, on the child's learning journey, ready to share with a family who wasn't there.
Ada · balancing on the log
"Crossed the fallen log unaided, then turned back to help Rowan across."
A risk-benefit assessment names the hazard, what the child gains and what you do about it. It is the document the forest school approach asks for, and a different one from a risk assessment that only wants the hazard gone. Build yours once, stack it onto every session that needs it, and note what you decided on the day at the next pause. See risk-benefit assessments, or take a free template and make it yours.
Forest school is a long-term process in a woodland, with a qualified leader, supported risk and child-led sessions. The app was built by a practitioner who runs it, around the way the Forest School Association describes good practice. It tracks a child's development outdoors: confidence, creativity, resilience, independence and wellbeing. The children's own rules, in their words, sit on every session as the group's charter, readable in the wood with no signal. Anyone who asks for evidence finds it in the sessions you ran.
Leaders, assistants, students and volunteers all get a free account, and their DBS, paediatric first aid and qualifications live on their own professional record and travel with them. Only the nursery needs a plan: £29 a month flat, VAT included, for the whole team, unlimited children and as many woods as you use. See full pricing.
Nursery questions
No, and it doesn't try to. Your nursery system runs the nursery: fees, occupancy, the daily register indoors. This runs the forest school: the session, the woods, the ratio, the supported risk and the observations you make out there. You keep both.
Not one-to-one. Observations are tagged to the five areas the Forest School Association uses for a child's development: confidence, creativity, resilience, independence and wellbeing. They build into the child's journey alongside everything else you record, and map across to your EYFS judgements. There's more in EYFS observations outdoors.
Then work to yours. The app shows the live ratio, children to adults, and leaves the judgement about what's right for this wood, this activity and these children with you. It counts every adult on the register, including the ones who aren't staff. There's more in forest school ratios explained.
Everything works with no signal: register, ratio, risk log, photos, observations. It saves to the phone and uploads when you're back in range. See works offline.
Set your nursery up free for 30 days, no card needed. Run one forest school morning on it and see.