Education is natural for Gan Alon's young foresters

In a designated whittling area, they can don goggles and gloves and learn to work with knives.

Jane Pescow, Gan Alon’s manager, said, “Forest school offers children a unique experience. Many pre-schools have outdoor areas. But this is not the same as being fully immersed in wild woodland: a mass of living creatures.

“There are endless discoveries to be made in the forest: sticks, stones, acorns, feathers.

“Where else can children pick up and drag a log? Where else can they get caught in ivy while playing? Where else can they find out what earth really feels like?”

Gan Alon

Adi Bloom, whose four-year-old daughter is one of Gan Alon’s 38 pupils, said: “I’ll pick up my daughter at the end of the day, and she’ll have dirt under her fingernails, she’ll have a fallen leaf or a pine cone in her pocket, and she’ll be full of stories about jumping off logs or arranging stones in patterns.

“I know that forest school is giving her an experience she’ll be unlikely to have anywhere else. And it’s given her an appreciation for the natural world that she’ll carry with her for the rest of her life.”