Training the wild trainers

admin
, 04 February 2025
Training the wild trainers
Image @ Kai Hilton
I'd always visited the beach as a youth with family. Using it now as a powerful learning environment gives it another meaning.
- Ashley, Wild Beach trainee

By Abi Weeden 

Head of Wilder Learning

With so much bad news around, it can seem hard to believe that we can overcome the challenges in front of us.

The natural world seems locked into decline, and us with it. Many of us wonder, what difference can I make?

Sometimes, a different perspective casts a whole new light on what might be possible.

Sussex Wildlife Trust has been running Forest School programmes for 20 years. We believe that helping young people connect with nature is one of the most valuable things we can do to protect nature and ourselves. The Forest School approach – learning outdoors, in nature-rich environments, using our hands and hearts as well as our heads – is practical and inspiring.

But as a provider of Forest School places to children, we can only do so much. We could stop everything else we do, and spend all our time running Forest Schools, and we would still only reach a fraction of the young people in Sussex.

That’s why a few years ago the Trust changed its approach, and began to focus on training Forest School leaders.

This creates the possibility for a different pace of change, where every person we train has the potential to help many others rediscover and deepen their connection with nature.

We know this has a profound impact on those who train with us. For many, it’s life-changing, and for some, career-changing too. It’s helping more teachers and educators to bring nature-centred approaches into their learning environments, and it’s giving others the confidence to start new roles and initiatives in their communities.

In recent years we’ve created ‘forest school by the sea’, with Wild Beach training. This too is all about ambitious change, and making the most of our amazing shoreline. Other wildlife trusts around the UK are picking up the Wild Beach idea too, creating even more possibilities for change.

As Robin Wall Kimmerer said in Braiding Sweetgrass: “It is not the land that has been broken, but our relationship to it.”

Let’s reconnect.

Our Wild Beach Trainings and Forest School Trainings take place across Sussex. For an informal chat about what we offer and how it could work for you, email [email protected]

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Comments

  • Mouse Usher:

    The brilliant Wild Beach training I attended last April kick started a whole chain of events that is growing all the time. I have set up Wild Beach sessions at the primary school I work in, reaching many children and enthusing them about our coastline and the creatures that live there. We are now looking to set up a Forest School, create a nature area and engage with local nature spaces through projects with the children, involving their parents too. Thank you so much to Sussex Wildlife Trust for setting me on this exciting path!

    07 Feb 2025 18:57:00

  • Lesley brant:

    Would love to know more about frostily school training and also the beach and if any volunteers are needed, it’s a great interest of mine so would love to hear from you

    08 Feb 2025 15:56:00

  • Sussex Wildlife Trust:

    Hi Lesley, you can see upcoming training events here https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/whats-on, and volunteering opportunities (though not currently with forest School or Wild Beach) here https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/volunteering-vacancies Hope there's something there for you. 

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