One app for the whole job
Most leaders run their forest school on a pile of half-fitting tools: a booking website here, an observation app there, risk assessments in Word, registers on paper. The Forest School app pulls the whole job into one connected system that works in the woods, with or without signal. Bookings become your register, your register carries your risk assessments, the day becomes observations, and the whole thing writes itself down as you go.
Booking platforms are built for tennis clubs and dance schools, not muddy mornings in the trees. Observation apps assume a classroom and a strong wi-fi signal. So you end up exporting a spreadsheet from one place, retyping names into another, keeping your risk-benefit assessments in a folder of Word files, and writing the register on a clipboard because nothing works once you're off the path. Every join between those tools is a place where something gets dropped.
The Forest School app does the bit the others ignore: the field layer. It's one system for the whole arc of a session, designed for cold fingers, low light and no bars on your phone. One link out fills your register; that register already carries the right risk assessment; the session becomes observations and photos as it happens; and everything saves on the device and syncs the moment you're back in range.
What's inside
Share one link and families book a place in seconds, with no account and no app to download. Every confirmed booking lands as a tick on your register, so there's nothing to retype. Parents agree to and sign your terms and conditions as they book.
Build a reusable library of risk-benefit assessments and stack the right ones onto each session. Log dynamic risk in the moment, on the spot, while you're standing in the mud.
Capture a moment of learning with a quick note and a photo, consent-checked before the shutter. Observations build into each child's learning journey over the weeks and terms.
Plan a single taster, a half-term block or a whole term of weekly sessions in one go. Each session keeps its own site, ratio and stacked assessments, ready to run.
Register, ratio, risk log, observations, incidents and reflection all live in one session record, and print as a single, tidy PDF whenever you need it.
The whole app runs on the device, in the woods, with no signal at all. It saves as you go and syncs everything back the moment you're in range. Nothing waits on a connection.
Who runs it
Why it's different
Most "forest school" software is club-management software with the words painted on. The Forest School app starts from the opposite end: the session itself, run outdoors, often miles from a signal. It's offline-first: the full app lives on your phone and works with no bars, syncing back when you return to range, rather than spinning a loading wheel under a tree.
It's also one connected system. A booking is a register entry. A register carries its risk assessment. A session becomes observations and a finished record. You never export, retype or reconcile, because it's all the same record moving through the day.
And it's built by a forest-school practitioner, not adapted from generic booking software. Every screen is shaped by what actually happens on a cold, muddy morning, so it fits the job instead of fighting it.
Want the full tour? The features page walks through every part of the app (from the booking link parents tap to the record that writes itself as you work) and how each piece feeds the next. It's the best way to see how one connected system saves you the stitching.
Every leader, assistant and volunteer gets a free account. Only the forest school (the provider running the sessions) needs a plan, and one plan covers the whole team and unlimited bookings. A freelance leader working on their own is on Solo (£8 a month, VAT included); a forest school with staff is on Team (£29 a month flat, VAT included). See full pricing: no card needed to start.
Set your forest school up free for 30 days, no card needed. Bookings, registers, risk and records, all in one place, all offline-ready.