I’ve been working with Churchfields Infant School in Redbridge, NE London again this week, walking up from the school to their local patch of Epping Forest, with Reception children on Tuesday and Year 2 children on Wednesday.

Its the second of five monthly visits to the school between now and the end of June June, set up with A New Direction as part of the creative partnerships initiative.

The school are keen that different aged children learn from and interact with each other, that children’s voices are heard and acted upon, and that we use creative ways to explore and interpret the local outdoor space.

After using clay and making sketchbooks to document the children’s own school grounds in our last sessions, we decided to venture out beyond the school and suggested a range of ways to make marks and structures with the materials that the forest could provide.

The reception children were excited by the sensory experience of simply walking, and sometimes wading, through mud, finding ‘houses’ within the low tree canopy and climbing fallen trees, or feeling the wet soil on their hands and fingers before using it to make tracks and marks onto paper.

With the year 2 children we gathered natural materials and rubbish from the woodland and created arrangements and sculptures, following the children’s own ideas and interests, with the resulting artwork ranging from totems and pirate ships to a mother with child, and a floating world built inside a puddle.