A KEIGHLEY-based group dedicated to getting more children to enjoy nature will expand this summer after experiencing its busiest ever year.

Get Out More is a social enterprise set up to help people engage with nature and feel better about themselves in mind and body.

The group has run sessions in Bingley, Saltaire and Ilkley for a number of years, and last year started holding its first overnight forest schools where children learned to live off the land, collecting their own firewood, starting their own fires and cooking their own food.

The overnight schools led to the busiest year yet for the group, with more than 435 children taking part.

That success means it has now appointed a new project manager to help the forest school programme continue going from strength to strength.

And the group is also looking at starting up three new forest schools in locations in West and North Yorkshire. Although it has yet to finalise the locations, it hopes to have the new sites up and running in time for the summer holidays.

The overnight sessions were introduced last year after children who had attended the day-long forest school sessions kept asking if they could stay on site overnight.

During the sessions, children get to learn skills such as cooking, foraging and building shelters, as well as learning more about the great outdoors

In a time when almost every child has almost constant access to the internet, the sessions act as a welcome reminder of the fun that can be had in nature and away from modern society.

The group reinvests profits from its sessions into the local community, and this year will be supporting projects like repair works to paths at Middleton Woods in Ilkley and encouraging more outdoor exploration for children.

Recent works the group has supported include projects to improve Hirst Woods in Saltaire and installing a stone marker at the St Ives Estate in Harden to mark the spot where a giant oak once stood. The tree was felled in 1985 in response to a nationwide appeal for tall, straight oaks to help reconstruct York Minster after a devastating fire.

Get Out More’s managing director, Annie Berrington, said the success of last year’s sessions meant the group had to add extra dates to keep up with demand.

She said: “2015 was a really busy year for us. We added extra dates and hours to our holiday forest school programmes in Bingley, Ilkley and Saltaire to cope with soaring demand and launched our first overnight forest school camp. We had the busiest summer holidays ever with 175 hours of activity for 435 children and young people, 11 forest school practitioners and 12 volunteers.”

New forest school project manager Ruth McBain has worked in schools and outdoor learning for over five years, including delivery for Get Out More over the past two years.

She said: “I have a passion for the outdoors, the natural environment, sustainability and one-world living and am keen to share and develop this enthusiasm in others. I love working with children, having a positive impact on their lives.”

Visit getoutmorecic.co.uk for more details.