IT was great to be invited again to Green Lane Community Special School last week as a member of the Mersey Forest team.

On this occasion we were joined by our international partners from Belgium and Slovenia who were keen to see how the Green Learning Environments Project as part of Erasmus was being delivered in the UK.

Together we are trying to identify examples of best practice in the delivery of non-formal learning for children with learning difficulties in the natural environment.

To the best of our knowledge, there is no educational material on nature-based skills development/ non-formal learning.

It is the aim of this project to help improve practice by providing a toolbox, to support non-formal learning practice in the natural environment and so improve the wellbeing of our children.

It is an exciting opportunity to develop the concept of Forest Schools. We know from research that some children learn better in a natural environment and this is especially so for children with learning difficulties.

I estimated that together we planted more than 70 trees including oak and birch.

The young learners were fantastic, enthusiastic and took note of the training given by my colleague Jo Sayers and her team.

Before I left I looked at the dozen fruit trees that I had helped their school friends plant just over two years ago as mayor.

The trees are all looking strong and I am hoping that when the fruit trees mature and bear fruit that I will be invited back to taste homemade pie.

It is no small wonder that the school has a brilliant Ofsted report.

GEOFF SETTLE Steering group member of The Mersey Forest