Sarah Ash and Sarah Millington, Health and Social Care and Child Development Subject Advisors

On 1 June 2025 we released the set assignment for unit R058 of our Cambridge National in Child Development: Create a safe environment and understand the nutritional needs of children from birth to five years. This assignment is for assessment in January and June 2026 and relates to a forest school scenario for children aged 4-5. 

Since then, we’ve had a number of questions from teachers, which we aim to answer in this blog. We hope this will help you understand the tasks and support your students.

What is a forest school?

Forest schools provide an outdoor learning approach based on hands-on experiences in nature. There are different types of forest schools, from full time forest schools set within designated forest sites that provide nothing but the outdoors, to forest schools that offer day visits to their forest school facilities. Some traditional school settings have wildlife areas on site, sometimes referred to as forest classrooms, that give their students an experience of being closer to nature and the wilderness.

The assignment for Chase Forest School hasn’t prescribed the type of forest school so this can be interpreted as you and your students decide.

Task 1 – Choose essential equipment

The two options for equipment to be researched are travelling and changing. Many of you have asked what equipment would be relevant to this setting for the 4-5 age group. Understandably some of you have referred to our specification for examples and found it difficult to relate what we have provided with the forest school setting in the scenario. 

There are different ways you can look at the equipment to cover the different types of forest schools and their settings. 

Travel equipment 

Examples could include – but are not limited to – balance bikes and trikes for moving between areas in the forest school. Travelling to and from the forest school could also be considered, as well as travel equipment that could be used when going on a trip. For example, taking children to a local forest school site for the day could include using safety walking ropes and hi-vis jackets and back packs. 

Changing equipment 

We’ve had queries asking what type of changing equipment would be suitable for the 4-5 age group.  

The example given in the advice section of Task 1 in the set assignment is a toilet training seat. For changing we would consider other equipment that assists with toileting, such as toilet steps. Although not directly changing equipment they are equipment that can enable children to use toilets independently and prevent the need for changing.  

Outdoor clothing is a must in a forest school setting and children visiting for the day might change into waterproof clothing and wellies when they arrive, so equipment for storing bags and shoes or wellies could be something in your forest school environment. Changing bags to store wet clothing would be another option, for example if the forest school doesn’t have toilets and a child has an accident using a ‘pee tree’. 

In summary, for Task 1 students are researching and choosing three pieces of one type of equipment that could be used for the setting. In this assignment students choose from either travel or changing equipment for a 4-5 year old. The travel and changing equipment should be relevant to the information given in the assignment. It is important that the piece of equipment that the student chooses can then be explained to show the suitability in relation to the factors which are age and weight, durability and safety. The student must then evaluate their choice saying why that piece of equipment has been chosen and others rejected.   What is being assessed is the choice of the equipment, its suitability applied to the factors given.

Task 2 – Identify and prevent accidents

The setting in the set assignment for Task 2 refers to the outside woodland nature area at the forest school. This is an area behind the school building. This could be interpreted as being a school in the traditional sense with a forest/wilderness area. The school building could be less formal. It could be a building in the forest school environment that is a less formal structure that provides shelter. 

Forest schools are about exploration and as a result have more risks, but they are supposed to be exciting spaces where children take more risks under careful supervision. For example, climbing trees, making mud pies, lighting fires, using saws to cut wood and so on. 

When thinking about creating a safe environment, students need to think about what we have said is in the woodland nature area and the types of activities the children might be engaged in. Forest schools don’t remove all the hazards, but with training and careful management they can be limited, and children learn how to manage themselves in these spaces. 

Students should be relating evidence to the content from 1.1 in the specification to help them show their understanding of potential accidents that could happen within the area and why they could happen. 

When they come to create and explain their plan to prevent accidents, this may include: staff training, supervision, having appropriate safety equipment, sensible placement of equipment, educating the children and completing risk assessments.

In conclusion

We hope this blog has provided you with some useful suggestions about how to approach the assignment. The assignment is open to some interpretation that should give your students a chance to explore some interesting settings that could be of interest to them in the future. 

We regularly attend network meetings at centres around the country and hold online meetings to provide support. If you would like a network meeting at your centre, please email: teacher_networks@ocr.org.uk. You can also request a Teams meeting.

Stay connected

If you have any questions, you can email us at OCRHealthandSocialCare@ocr.org.uk, call us on 01223 553998 or post on X (formerly Twitter) us @OCR_Health. You can also sign up to subject updates to keep up-to-date with the latest news, updates and resources. 

If you are considering teaching any of our qualifications, use the expression of interest form to let us know, so that we can help you with more information.

About the authors

Sarah Ash joined OCR as a subject advisor in 2018. During her time with us she has supported centres with their queries, attended network meetings and contributed to the production of a number of resources. She has also been involved in the redevelopment of Cambridge Nationals in Health and Social Care and Child Development and is currently working as part of the team developing Cambridge Advanced National (AAQ) in Health and Social Care. Before joining OCR Sarah was a teacher of Health and Social Care and a moderator.

Sarah Millington joined OCR after teaching Health and Social Care and Child Development over a period of 16 years. Having been a teacher, subject lead and moderator within her career, she has planned and developed subjects to meet the need of her students to allow them to become independent learners, focusing on effective teaching and learning skills. She has experienced and survived several qualification changes: GCSEs to Cambridge Nationals, and A Levels to Cambridge Technicals. In her spare time she enjoys open water sea swimming, travelling and cooking. Pie and cake are key favourites.

Related blogs

• Looking at unit R058 of our Cambridge National in Child Development