How a Kendal forest school stopped starting sessions without a child's pens
Beth Lowther runs Fellside Forest Club on the edge of Kendal: 46 children aged five to 11, three groups, after-school sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays and a Saturday morning session in a rented woodland, with two paid leaders and four volunteers. On a Saturday in September 2024, a seven-year-old with a peanut allergy came out in hives at snack time. His adrenaline pens were in his father's car, which had left ten minutes earlier.
TL;DR
After a near miss with a child whose adrenaline pens had left the site, Fellside Forest Club audited its medicines and found 3 of 11 expired or missing. From January 2025 Beth Lowther moved one-page care plans onto each child's Bitir record, added a two-pens check to the gate register, gave every group leader a medical bag for their group's children and started recording every dose with the parent told the same day. At the last three termly checks, none of the 12 medicines held was out of date, and pens missing at the gate fell from five times in a term to none.
Beth Lowther
Founder and Lead Practitioner · Fellside Forest Club, Kendal
Where the club started
Beth trained as a primary teacher in Lancaster and taught for nine years before qualifying as a Level 3 forest school leader. She started Fellside in 2021 with one Saturday group of 12. By 2024 it had three groups and a waiting list.
Sessions run 3.45pm to 5.30pm on weekdays and 9.30am to 11.15am on Saturdays. The woodland is a 12-minute walk from the lane where parents drop off, and there is a small hut at the entrance where the club keeps tools, spare clothes and, until 2025, the medical folder.
- Nine children had a medical need: four at risk of anaphylaxis (three food, one wasp sting), five with asthma.
- The care plans were in a ring binder in the hut, about 400 metres from where the groups actually worked.
- Medicines were handed to whichever leader was nearest at drop-off. Sometimes nobody took them at all, and they stayed in the child's rucksack or the parent's car.
- Nobody wrote down when medicine was given. A puff of an inhaler was "not really medicine".
What went wrong that Saturday?
The boy, who we will call Sam, sat next to a friend at snack time. The friend shared a homemade flapjack. Sam ate half before a volunteer recognised the packaging, or rather the lack of it.
A leader gave him the antihistamine from his group's bag, which happened to be the right child's antihistamine because his mum had packed it separately. The hives settled. His father was phoned and back in 25 minutes with the pens. Sam was fine.
Beth spent that evening reading the care plans in the binder. Two hours later she had a list of problems longer than the one she started with.
"If it had been worse, the pens were 15 minutes away by car and the plan was in a folder in a hut nobody was standing in. We are in a wood outside Kendal. You cannot plan on an ambulance being quick. Everything that kept him safe that day was luck."
What Fellside set up in Bitir
Beth and her two paid leaders, Ross and Priya, worked through the club's medicines over the October half-term, using our guide to medicines and allergies in children's clubs. They decided to follow the medicines rules in the EYFS statutory framework even though their sessions are short enough not to be covered by them. The changes went live in January 2025.
- One-page care plans on each child's Bitir member record, copied from the action plan the family's GP or allergy clinic had already written. They are visible only to the managers of that child's group channel.
- A two-pens check at the gate. The leader taking the register in Bitir ticks "two pens seen" for the four children at risk of anaphylaxis and "inhaler seen" for the five with asthma. No pens, no session: the child waits at the gate with their parent until the pens arrive.
- A red medical bag per group, carried by that group's leader all session, holding the medicines of that group's children only.
- Termly expiry tasks. In the first week of each term every family with a medicine gets a dated task in Bitir to confirm its expiry date, and the group leader gets one to check it.
- A dose record for everything. Every inhaler puff, antihistamine or pen is logged the same afternoon and goes to the parent through the group channel.
Two parents asked for a nut ban. Beth said no. She could not check 46 lunchboxes and did not want leaders relaxing because of a rule nobody could enforce. The club now provides the snack, shares only packaged food with a label and checks the label with allergic children before they eat.
What changed in the numbers?
Beth compared the October 2024 audit with the termly checks and records since January 2025.
The five missing-pen mornings all came in the first term of the new rule. Each time a parent was back within 20 minutes. After that, families packed the pens because they knew the question was coming at the gate.
The 31 recorded doses are almost all asthma inhalers on cold mornings. Before 2025 none of them would have been written down, and two parents told Beth the records helped their GP adjust their child's preventer inhaler.
"The gate check felt fussy for about three weeks. Now the children hold the pens up before I ask. One of our six-year-olds tells new families about the rule before I get the chance."
What Beth does in Bitir
- Member profiles with role-limited visibility for each child's one-page care plan, readable on a phone in the wood.
- Attendance registers with a "two pens seen" or "inhaler seen" check against the children who need it.
- Dated tasks for expiry checks at the start of every term, assigned to the family and the group leader.
- Group channels that send each dose record to the parent the same afternoon.
- Roles that make each group's leader and named cover volunteer its only managers.
What she would tell another club
- Read your care plans tonight and check every expiry date. You will find something.
- Put the plan where the group is, not where the building is.
- Two pens at the gate, every session, and no exceptions for "just this once".
- Count inhaler puffs as medicine. Parents and GPs find the record useful.
- Skip the food ban and check labels instead.
What's next
All four volunteers are booking onto a paediatric first aid course in the autumn, paid from a £360 grant from a Kendal community fund. Beth also plans to run a short pen-trainer practice with every group's leaders at the start of each term, and to add a wasp-season reminder to the September care plan review.
Questions we're asked about this case
What happened at Fellside Forest Club in September 2024?
A seven-year-old with a peanut allergy ate part of a flapjack another child shared at snack time. He came out in hives. His two adrenaline pens were in his father's car, which had just left. A leader gave antihistamine from his bag, the reaction stayed mild and his father was back in 25 minutes. Nobody was hurt, but the club treated it as a near miss.
What does the gate check involve?
The leader taking the register in Bitir ticks two pens seen next to the names of the four children at risk of anaphylaxis, and checks inhalers for the five children with asthma. If a child at risk of anaphylaxis has no pens, they wait at the gate with their parent until the pens arrive.
Who can see a child's care plan?
The leaders and volunteers on that child's group channel and Beth as the club's designated safeguarding lead. The plan sits on the child's member record with visibility limited to those managers. Other parents cannot see it.
Did the club ban nuts?
No. Beth decided a ban would give false confidence because the club cannot check every lunchbox. Instead, the club provides the snack, only packaged food with an ingredients label is shared, and leaders check the label with an allergic child before they eat anything.
Put the care plan where the group is
Keep each child's plan visible to their group's managers only, add a pen check to the register and send every dose record to the parent the same day.
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