Archimedes Forest Schools Accreditation
Join thousands who've already started their Forest School journey
Accreditation for settings
A standard your whole setting earns.
Training qualifies a person. Accreditation recognises a setting. It puts Forest Schools into your governance, your timetable and your staffing, from reception to eighteen, and it says so in a way parents, inspectors and governors understand.
This is a whole school standard, not an early years one. It is assessed across the whole institution, reception to eighteen, against ten pillars and forty criteria. Settings are told honestly what they can evidence today, and some are asked to come back in a year. That is the point of it.
Background
Where this came from.
Archimedes has trained practitioners since 2000, around 1,500 people a year, across five countries. For most of that time the qualification travelled and the setting did not.
A school would send one enthusiastic teacher on a Level 3, and when that teacher moved on, the outdoor programme left with them. The children lost it. The school had nothing written down and nothing to hand to the next person.
Accreditation exists to fix that. It moves the work from one person's enthusiasm into the institution: strategic planning, named governance, a protected site, a trained team, and evidence of what changed for the children.
Why it matters commercially
Enrichment, or distinction.
Schools compete on more than academic attainment. Families expect character development, emotional strength, leadership formation, global citizenship and environmental stewardship, and they look for proof rather than prospectus language.
Accreditation demonstrates seriousness and governance maturity in exactly those areas. It moves Forest Schools from something the setting offers to something the setting is.
Every school says it values the outdoors. Very few can show you where that is written down.
What arrives
Something that goes on a wall.
Cast in bronze, dated to the year you earned it, and naming the standard you reached rather than the fee you paid. It goes by the front door, where parents read it and where staff walk past it every morning.
A certificate and a digital badge unique to your organisation come with it, along with your listing on the international register.
Learning begins with being, where being is enough.
What it is
Three standards. You enter where your evidence puts you.
Nobody is made to start at the bottom. A setting that can already evidence the staffing, the practice and the governance of a higher standard is assessed against that standard. What decides it is what you can show an assessor, not how long you have been on the ladder.
The ten pillars are the same at every level. What changes is depth, consistency, staffing and how far it is embedded in the institution.
Bronze
Development Centre
£1,997Application and assessment
£997 a yearAnnual accreditation, with £997 of training returned
For settings beginning a structured development journey towards embedded whole organisation practice.
Minimum workforce
- One Forest School Practitioner at Level 3 or above
- A governor or director representing Forest School at board level
- Appropriate Level 2 and Level 1 support
The point at which a setting can say this is real.
Silver
Leadership Centre
£2,997Application and assessment
£1,497 a yearAnnual accreditation, with £997 of training returned
For established settings with sustained provision and embedded leadership, progressing towards Centre of Excellence.
Minimum workforce
- Two Forest School Practitioners at Level 3 or above
- Two Forest School Assistants at Level 2 or above
- A governor or director representing Forest School at board level
It is no longer a project. It is how they teach.
Gold
Centre of Excellence
£3,997Application and assessment
£1,997 a yearAnnual accreditation, with £997 of training returned
The highest distinction, for settings evidencing mature, sustained and continually improving practice.
Minimum workforce
- One Forest School Trainer at Level 4 or above
- Two Forest School Practitioners at Level 3 or above
- Three Forest School Assistants at Level 2 or above
- A governor or director representing Forest School at board level
For settings other settings should come and look at.
The training credit
Your annual fee comes back to you as training.
Every annual fee includes £997 of workforce development. It covers one online Level 3 place, or it can be put towards In Person training anywhere in the world. International centres are not restricted to training delivered in Britain.
At Development Centre the annual fee is £997 and the credit is £997. The assurance pays for itself in staff.
Use of the credit cannot influence accreditation. A training relationship, a provider relationship or a financial transaction never buys preferential assessment.
Qualifications are accepted from Open Awards, BTEC or Agored at the level stated or above. Every award carries a consultative on-site assessment, a certificate, a stainless steel wall plaque for your entrance, a digital badge unique to your organisation, your listing in the international register, and access to the member library.
Registered charities receive 30 per cent off the fee. Further discounts apply where accreditation is linked to staff training, because a setting qualifying its own people is doing the work rather than buying the badge.
The quality standard
Ten pillars. Forty criteria.
The standard is the same at every level and it is published in full, because a standard you cannot read before you apply is not a standard. Every setting receives a visual profile showing where it is strong and where it is thin. Nobody scores evenly, and the profile is more useful than the score.
- Accountable board level ownership and strategy
- Forest School inside planning, budgets and review
- Leaders know sustained provision from occasional
- Decisions and improvement actions recorded
- Regular, sustained provision across changing conditions
- Agency, identity and differing ways of participating
- Adjustments that keep challenge as well as access
- Learner voice shaping organisational decisions
- Quality judged against defined standards, not reputation
- Named responsibilities, timescales and review points
- Practice tested for consistency across people and sites
- Gaps and unintended consequences lead to action
- Safeguarding, insurance, first aid and risk benefit current
- Dynamic risk assessment and learner risk competence
- Physical and psychological safety without removing agency
- Incidents and near misses reviewed for learning
- Qualified staffing meets the level applied for
- Roles, supervision and competence boundaries understood
- Families, landowners, community and specialists engaged
- Recruitment and development protect continuity
- Ecological assessment, management and seasonal review
- Learners share in care, reciprocity and stewardship
- Procurement, materials and waste handled responsibly
- Provision adapts when the ecosystem shows pressure
- Long term, relational, learner led, in a real natural place
- Tools and fire serve development, they do not define it
- The child first teacher, Nature second, the adult third
- Intervention protects curiosity rather than hurrying outcomes
- Baseline and longitudinal evidence gathered ethically
- Observation and learner meaning, not only numbers
- Claims limited to what the evidence supports
- Findings reach governance, staff and families
- Space for autonomy, challenge, retreat and relationship
- Materials open ended, accessible and culturally considerate
- Design answers to learners and living systems
- Reviewed for inclusion, sensory needs and hidden barriers
- Regular reflection grounded in observation
- Disagreement examined without blame or defensiveness
- Development responds to evidence, role and need
- Boundaries, ethics and reflective records protected
The difference
Why this one, and not a badge.
There are schemes a setting can join. This is not one of them. Six things separate a standard that means something from a logo for the prospectus, and every one of them is a reason a serious school should want ours.
It can be refused
Settings have been told they were not ready. A recognition that cannot be withheld is worth nothing to the next school that asks about it.
It assesses the setting
Not one enthusiastic member of staff. If your programme leaves when they leave, it was never accredited practice.
It stands on regulated qualifications
The training beneath it is Ofqual regulated and Open Awards accredited. The Level 3 Leader award is RQF 601/1727/8. Anyone can look that up.
We audit and build the site with you
The assessment is consultative. We audit your site and help you develop it into the highest standard of outdoor learning facility, rather than only marking it.
We help you fund it
Archimedes assists settings with fundraising towards recognition. No other standard in this field does that.
It is reviewed every year
Not awarded once and forgotten. The plaque on your wall reflects what is happening this year, which is the only thing a parent actually cares about.
A standard nobody can fail is a decoration. A standard people can fail is an advantage, and it belongs to the schools that pass it.
Who it is for
Settings, not individuals.
Nurseries and early years
Where the outdoors is already most of the day and the job is to evidence it properly rather than to start it.
Primary and through schools
Where Forest Schools has to survive contact with a timetable, a curriculum and a governing body.
Secondary and sixth form
The answer to anyone who says this is only for the early years. Teenagers need it just as much.
International schools
Where the framework has to be translated into local climate, culture and ecology rather than stamped over it.
Groups and families of schools
The first accreditation does the translation work. Every school after it starts further along.
Specialist and alternative provision
SEN, ASD, gifted, and the children mainstream has stopped reaching. Often where this matters most.
How it works
Five steps, and the first two cost you nothing.
There is no application form to fill in cold. We would rather look at where you actually are and tell you honestly whether this is worth your money yet.
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The diagnostic
Forty questions, four for each of the ten pillars, answered by whoever knows the setting best. It takes about fifteen minutes and gives you your profile on the screen straight away. Free, and yours to keep.
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A conversation with your leadership
An hour, with whoever holds the budget and whoever holds the vision. Usually the head and one other. We describe what the standard asks for and you tell us where you actually are.
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The Quality Mark application
You apply for the standard the diagnostic suggests you can evidence, and describe why your organisation qualifies. We will tell you if we think you are aiming too high, and occasionally that you are aiming too low.
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Consultative assessment, on site or online
Documents, conversations with staff at every level, a site audit, and time watching a live session. Internationally this can be done remotely, but somebody watches real children in your real space.
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Recognition, then an annual review
Certificate, stainless steel plaque, digital badge and register listing. Then a review each year of the three, which is a conversation rather than an inspection, and which is where most settings decide what they are working towards next.
Step one, free
The quality standard diagnostic.
The real standard, all forty criteria, exactly as an assessor would work through them. Answer honestly rather than aspirationally. The profile is only useful if it shows you the thin pillars, and every setting has them. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent anywhere unless you ask for the full report.
Your profile
Updates as you answer.
Each bar is one pillar, out of 12. The line down the middle is halfway: anything short of it is where an assessor will press hardest.
Answer all forty
Your indicative standard, your strongest pillars and your thinnest will appear here once every criterion is answered.
Have this overview sent to you.
Your score, your band and your three thinnest pillars, in writing, so you can put it in front of a head or a board. Free, and it does not commit you to anything.
Complete all forty first.
The full breakdown and action plan
The profile above tells you where you stand. This tells you exactly what to do about it.
- All ten pillars written up individually, criterion by criterion
- A bullet pointed action plan to reach Development Centre, and the standard above it if you are already there
- The evidence an assessor will ask for, criterion by criterion
- Which staff qualifications you are short of, and in what order to get them
- A realistic timescale, written for a governing body rather than for us
£2One off. No subscription attached to it.
We use your address to send the report and nothing else. Complete all forty first.
Membership
The part that is worth more than the plaque.
Accreditation opens the member area, and the member area is what settings actually use week to week. It runs monthly, it is behind a password, and it grows.
A named person
One contact who knows your setting, not a ticketing system. You can ring them about a difficult child, a nervous governor or a site problem.
Termly practitioner meetings
Online, and open to your whole staff rather than just the qualified leads. Somewhere to bring the session that did not work.
The annual gathering
One day a year, in person, where accredited settings meet each other. The thing people say they value most and the hardest to describe on a page.
Training at member rates
Levels 1, 2 and 3 for your staff, delivered in your setting where the numbers make that sensible, so portfolios are built with your own children.
Your listing
On the international register, which parents and prospective staff read, and which is how most schools find each other.
Fundraising support
We help settings and their parent bodies raise the money for recognition, rather than treating the fee as your problem alone.
Accredited settings
Included
No extra feeFor the life of your accreditation
- Every member area, as it opens
- Your named contact
- Termly meetings for all staff
- The annual gathering
- Training at member rates
Accreditation and membership are one thing, not two purchases.
Working towards it
Member area only
MonthlyPer setting, confirmed on enquiry
- Every member area, as it opens
- Termly meetings for all staff
- Training at member rates
- Counts towards your first accreditation
For settings building towards Development Centre who want the material now.
Groups
Across the group
By programmeAll campuses, one agreement
- Every setting in the group, accredited or not
- Shared policy and translation work
- Staff training delivered across sites
- One point of contact for the group
Costed once across the family of schools rather than school by school.
Inside the member area
Written material you will not find anywhere else.
Every area below is Archimedes teaching material, kept current, and released to member settings only. New areas open through the year and are included rather than sold again.
A full academic year of outdoor sessions, one a week, each with an opportunity summary, materials and observation prompts.
Birth to three. Attachment, movement, sensory integration and ecological belonging, developed at Kenwood before it is taught anywhere.
The same principles applied to teenagers, who need them just as much and are served far worse.
For the children who will not come outside, will not join in, or have stopped coming to school at all.
Sensory load, predictability, transitions and communication, written by people who have lived it rather than read about it.
Depth rather than acceleration. What to do with the child who has finished before you have started.
Mapped to the curriculum key stage by key stage, so outdoor sessions answer the questions a head of department will ask.
Heat, humidity, biting insects, venomous species and a growing season that never stops. Translated, not transplanted.
Where there is no woodland and the site is sand, rock and scrub. The principles hold. The practice changes completely.
Snow, ice and very short days, and the clothing, timing and fire practice that makes them workable rather than dangerous.
Session outlines, risk benefit templates, observation frameworks, policy wording and parent letters, all editable.
The Blackwell Growth Cycle, the Five C's, the 7 P's of Play, the 7 R's of Character and the Biophilia Lexicon, as working forms.
For international school groups
A standard that crosses borders without flattening them.
If you are responsible for outdoor learning across a family of schools, your problem is not whether it is a good idea. Your problem is that it looks different on every campus, depends on whoever happens to be enthusiastic there, and cannot be reported on in any way a board would accept.
Accreditation is what turns that into one standard, assessed the same way in every country you operate in, and reported in the same language.
One standard, every campus
The same ten pillars and forty criteria in Britain, Asia, the Gulf or the Americas. A head in one country and a head in another answer the same questions.
Evidence you can compare
Every setting produces the same profile, so for the first time you can see which campus is strong where, and put the strong ones next to the thin ones.
A route for your staff
Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 sit underneath the standard. Moving a campus up means qualifying more of its people, which is a retention argument as much as a training one.
Translated, never transplanted
Forest Schools is never stamped over a country's own culture, ecology or ideas about childhood. Heat, monsoon, desert, snow, city. The principles hold and the practice changes.
Assessed wherever you are
Assessment can be done remotely where travel makes no sense, and somebody still watches a live session with real children in your real space.
Priced as a programme
A rollout is not a stack of separate applications. It is costed as one piece of work across the group, with staff training delivered across sites together.
We will also tell you plainly how many settings we can properly support in a year, and we will say no when that number is reached. A group that accredits twenty campuses badly has bought nothing.
Who this is for
Reception to eighteen, and everything between.
The most common objection is that Forest Schools belongs in the early years. It does not, and the settings furthest along prove it. ICHK in Hong Kong has worked with us for nine years as a through school, applying the same principles to teenagers who need them just as much as five year olds do. Rugby School Thailand is building it from the staffroom out across a full international campus.
Early years and primary
Where most settings begin, and where the sceptics expect it to stop. Sustained provision, the same group, across a season.
Secondary and sixth form
The same ten pillars, applied to young people making decisions about who they are. Our own Level 1 opens at fourteen, so students can qualify alongside staff.
The institution itself
Governance, strategy, budget and a named director. This is the part that survives a staff departure, and it is the part accreditation actually examines.
How a rollout works
One school proves it. The group inherits the route.
Where a school belongs to a wider group, the first accreditation is the expensive one, because it is where the standard gets translated into that group's language, its policies and its way of working.
After that, every other school starts further along. The diagnostic is quicker, the policy work is largely done, and staff training can be delivered across sites together.
What we will not do is accredit a group centrally and let individual schools inherit the badge without evidencing anything. Every setting is assessed.
Accreditation you can be refused is the only kind worth having.
We have told settings they were not ready. We would rather do that than hand out a standard that means nothing to the next school that asks about it.Starting
Tell us about your setting.
Where you are, what you already do outdoors, who is qualified and what you would like this to become. There is no checkout on this page. The first step is the diagnostic above, and it is free.
Start a conversation
