VsI "Laimingu vaiku pilis"

VsI "Laimingu vaiku pilis" (Forest School further in the text) is covering pre-primary and primary levels of education in Lithuania and is one of the first kindergartens in the countrie to start implementing outdoor education in primary and pre-primary schooling years. The organization employs 12 staff members, 10 of them are pedagogical and 2 are administrative workers with 49 children enrolled into the programs. Forest School is educating children from 3 to 8 years old at the moment and yearly growing in terms of primary school. The aim of Forst School is to enroll 36 kindergarten children and 36 primary school children into the programs. The Forest School is located in Kursiu nerija (Curonian spit) National park, in the forsest between Curonian and Baltic seas. We start every day by meeting Children in Klaipeda city and taking the ferry to the spit, which is in wild nature and just several minutes away from the port city. The phylosophy and goals of the school are: - to educate children through practical rather than theoretical skills (to intergate academics through hands-on projects) providing more oportunities to experience different materials, projects, express creativity; - to educate though free play and children initiated activities, to adopt the curricula to the childrens individual needs, creating motivated system for learning; - to educate through living and learning in nature and leading a sustainable way of living, creating the strong and significant human and nature connection. The strategic goals of the Forest school pre- primary education are: - to implement the national pre-primary education recomendations by being outdoors more than 80% of the kindergarten working time; - to implement the national pre-primary education recomendations by implementing hands-on projects and applying outdoor education methodology; - to constantly train staff for increasing the quality of education; - to work on bonding together the school community of children, parents and staff within all Forest kindergarten community. The strategic goals of the Forest school primary education are: - to implement the national primary education program by taking outdoors more than 50% of the academics; - to implement the national primary education program by fully integrating the subjects into the practical school projects; - to constantly train staff for increasing the quality of education; - to work on bonding together the school community of children, parents and staff within all Forest kindergarten community. Forest School also concentrates on the constant learning of adults: families and staff. It creates the possibilities for parents to connect and share the experiences of parenting, to actively participate in the process of education by being a part of an active community. Staff is constantly trained in the organizations training (Forest kindergarten is developing and implementing training sessions for their staff), other National and International trainings, through participation and sharing of good practices in International projects: Erasmus+ Mobility projects, Nordplus Junior projects. Forest School is a part of UNESCO Assotiated Schools network, working together for the sustainability in education as well as outside of the school life. Forest School also implements non formal education - scouting.