| Ed and Rachel Leigh-Wood set up their venture 8 years ago with the intention of helping children to get in touch with nature. They left London where Ed was a qualified Maths teacher and moved back to Rachel’s parents house, situated overlooking a beautiful valley just outside Bath. When Ed and Rachel were about to have their 3rd child, they decided to stop their current jobs and start a business where they could be with their children, work together and offer an outdoor journey type of experience to many children. The first thing to do was to register with Ofsted, as childminders, as they use their home and garden as the base. Although the majority of their walks and expeditions take place in the immediate vicinity of the house in Swainswick, the broader objective is to give teachers and parents the confidence to encourage children to explore nature in their own neighbourhoods. They went on to get diplomas in Playwork (Level 3), Basic Expedition Leaders Training, qualifications from the Institute of Earth Education (John Muir Trek Leaders) and have attended numerous conferences and courses on outdoor play and green woodworking. Ed, Rachel and their team of leaders are passionate about the importance of outdoor play in the development of children’s emotional and educational wellbeing. In 2011 they received an Outstanding from Ofsted and were awarded 'Play Champions' by Banes, in particular for their work in outdoor play.
Do you rent/lease or own land, or stick to public footpath areas?
We have permission from some of the local landowners to use their land for camps, one man is a local green grocer who suggested to us that we use his woodland, so we have an established camp ‘top camp’ which has tables, shave horses and a covered area. It can be exciting to walk through the countryside and come across a firmly established area to set up base. However, it is good to vary where you take the children to stop it being too familiar. They like the sense of adventure of going somewhere know. We like to set up camps in different locations, some are established for a time if permission has been obtained from a landowner. Otherwise, we set up camp just off a foot path in a secluded, wild area, usually near a tree, or a coppice of some kind (unless signed posted not to light fires or keep to the path). Increasingly, we are making relationship with land owners, making informal agreements with them to walk across their land in order to access other areas. When we are looking for new places to go, we find a route through and then make enquiries to find out who owns lands to ask their permission to access it. We have public liability insurance to cover us walking through land that is not are own and we make this clear to landowners when we approach them in writing.
We also have a big garden for after school club and parties, which the children play in before and after explorer days.
Did you initially contact schools for their business or already have contacts? Are you thinking about school work where they come for an explorer day in the countryside?
Usually, the contacts have been made through teachers we already knew. There are local schools who have approached us hearing about us through word of mouth. They hear of us through our work with parents with the holiday ‘Explorers Club’. Often though they have heard about us because we have been involved in projects with other organizations, such as Play England or 5x5x5, and we are credited on their website with our details, so schools or parents my come across us that way, when they search for outdoor learning. When people find us online, they see we have worked with local schools and that gives them a level of confidence in our work. Also we have done a bit of training for the council over the years or run courses for teachers here and sometimes teachers book us because they have met us on that.
Roughly how many days/sessions a week do you run events for schools?
Our main body of work is generated not through schools but through parents. However, we probably do about 8 sessions a year with large groups from schools, usually one off explorer days.
We have one school contract where we run classes on a regular basis, once a week for a morning, this is our second year into that contract. That came through someone recommending to the Headmaster about our work and he contacted us.
We have a relationship with a nursery where we are seeing them once a week.
Roughly how many parties do you book a month?
On average about four a month, working two parties on a Saturday. Two leaders take a two parties on the same day.
What is your ideal ratio adult to child, and does this vary by age?
As child-minders, we have to comply with the ratio as part of our registration.
For a group of 12 children we aim to have three adults.
A group of 9 children, two adults.
If the children are young, 5,6 and 7 then it really nice to have three adult per group of 11/12. We don’t know the needs of the children until they arrive, three leaders is great in case one child needs a lot of attention.
We have quite a few people who volunteer which really helps us out on explorers days. We have 2 Africans living and working with us.
How long have you worked in outdoor play work?
We started in 2003. How did you get your first group of explorers?
Flyers to schools, in school bags, 300 odd leaflets.
Poster up on notice boards.
How long did it all get up a running?
We started by running one group of mixed aged children.
We then went up to two walks of mixed ages children.
We then split the groups into under 8’s and over 8’s. We eventually trained up another leader in June 2008 and established a third group with an Independent leader.
What did OFSTED say?
"Outstanding". Both Rachel and Edward are registered as childminders and as such must be registered as individuals and therfore there's two individual reports which differ slightly. Click to see Rachel or Edward's report.
Insurance:
When working as childminders, Royal Sun Alliance.
When we are not working as childminders our insurance is with ‘the institute of outdoor learning’.
What qualifications and experience have you acquired to do the work you do?
- PGCSE
- Basic Expedition Leaders Training
- Pediatric first aid
- Level 3 diploma in Playwork
- Basic greenwood work skills and whittling with Knifes course from Cherry Wood Project. Apprenticeship with a local green wood worker (when wood is recently chopped down, still got the green under the bark), hurdle making.
- Introduction courses on Earth Walks, by Earth Education (John Cree at Bishops Wood Environmental Centre)
- Fire by friction course by a bushcraft expert Dave Watson, Derbyshire.
- John Muir Trek (qualified leaders)
- Martin Maudsley (http://www.brain-gel.com/storysoup/storytelling.htm)
Environmental Play and Storytelling
- Conferences on outdoor play - leading and attending
- Learning crafts including finger looping, green woodwork, story telling, cooking. We have African volunteers from Careforce who share their skills with us.
- Wild food foraging
Things we would like to get qualified in:
- Outdoor first aid
- Group walking leader
Recommended reading:
- ‘Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from nature deficit-disorder’ by Richard Louv, also a speech he gave on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrDIbt80Ve8
- ‘Essential bush craft’ by Ray Mears.
- ‘Go Wild! 101 things to Do Outdoors Before you grow up’ by Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield.
- ‘Jesus and the Earth’ by Bishop of Liverpool.
- ‘Little Book of Whittling: Passing Time on the Trail, on the Porch, and Under the Stars’ by Chris Lubkemann
- ‘Food for free’ by Richard Mabey
- ‘The Courage to Connect: Becoming All We Can Be’ by Rosemary Lain-Priestley.
- ‘Earth, Water, Fire and Air: Playful Explorations in the Four Elements’ by Walter Kraul
- ‘Earth Education: A New Beginning’ by Steve Van Martre
‘No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society’ by Tim Gill.
- ‘Earth Abbey’ by Chris Sunderland.
Relevent Subscriptions:
- Members of Institute of outdoor learning.
- Play today
Useful Websites:
Who are we for... |
