Brave Play & Growing Confidences
Tue, 10 Nov
|CERES
Bounce Back: Brave Play & Growing Confidence explores why children seek risk, how challenge builds confidence and resilience, and how adults can support adventurous play through practical skills, thoughtful guidance and knowing when to step back.
Time & Location
10 Nov 2026, 9:30 am – 11:30 am
CERES, Stewart St, Brunswick East VIC 3057, Australia
About the event
Bounce Back: Brave Play & Growing Confidence is a practical three-part workshop series delivered at CERES in collaboration with Fire & Ferns, exploring how children learn through challenge, adventurous play and gradually increasing independence.
Led by Doug Ponsonby, a CERES excursion leader and experienced Forest School and outdoor educator, the series draws on close to a decade of work with children and young people across Forest School, Montessori, mainstream education and environmental learning settings.
The workshops explore why children are naturally drawn to climbing, speed, tools, rough play, exploration and other forms of challenge, and how these experiences can support confidence, judgement, resilience, problem-solving and emotional regulation. Rather than seeing all risk as something to remove, participants will consider what children may be learning when they test themselves and how adults can support that process thoughtfully.
A central focus is learning to distinguish between risk and hazard. Rather than removing every…