Description: Bishopswood Centre is an environmental education centre in the West Midlands (UK). One of the project managers talks about the aims of the centre, the projects it is involved in and the educational programmes it runs.

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What we do

Jon: Okay. This is Bishops Wood Centre, which is an educational centre run by a local authority in West Midlands, Worcestershire, just outside Birmingham. And it's an environmental education centre, it runs lots of programmes for schools, mostly primary age - so kids up to the age of about eleven. We get a few secondary school groups, a few informal youth groups, but that's the main part of the sort of school visits. And we also go out and visit schools throughout the county. So we got a team of staff that do advisory work in schools. And now on top of that, we run conferences here for all sorts of people about anything that's to do with environmental education. Other groups come and use it as a venue, because it's a nice venue for conferences. And we run a lot of training, which is ... a large part of my job is training of teachers, but also training of other educators who are supporting teachers often in environmental concerns and training other people that might be involved in some sort of community development work that's related to environmental issues. And then the other main part of our work is with ... we've got an other partner which is a local college of technology that does a lot of work with businesses on environmental management. So that's the sort of the breadth of the work that the centre's involved with. /
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 237 Duration: 1m30

How we got started

Jon: The whole thing started back in 1988 in a very ... in a small Portakabin, which is just like a temporary building. When the ... We're on a national grid substation site, which is like a big transformer really, so all the electricity that comes to all our homes in Worcestershire and Herefordshire gets transformed here from high voltage to lower voltage. And often these sites are on good sort of nature sites, so it's surrounded by really good woodland. And they'd been running some ... a few nature trails and guided walks from the centre. And back in 1988, the national grid approached the local authority to see if they'd be interested in setting up a centre. So that's really how it all started. It's grown since then and ten years ago this building was built, which is still one of the model buildings in Europe, I guess, that's been built along environmental guidelines with education in mind.
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Our aims and values

Jon: And our whole reason for being is to help people live a more sustainable lifestyle, particularly in Worcestershire. The focus of that being through schools, but also working with businesses and working with family groups and all the rest of it. So it's really helping people live more sustainably, but also to get them more in touch with the natural world and where, I suppose, where we do get our natural resources from as well as getting that source of wonder from the natural world because we got some really good habitats here. So, that's first rate.
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 97 Duration: 0m34

Working with children

Sabine: And what is your current work like? What are ... can you give some examples?
Jon: I suppose we could start from when they're very young. And we've got a forest school that's based here at Bishops Wood, but part of our job is to actually get that out into the community. So we've got a forest school coordinator who has managed to get about 35 forest schools going round the county that are attached to schools, where they've gotten mostly nurseries, pre-five and -six year olds going out into natural habitats every day. Then we've got ... We've ... at the moment we've got a number of waste projects happening, looking at waste in schools and how they can cope with waste right from sort of composting in schools through to ... we've got a big project with Zary, which is an international project, where we've got secondary schools teaming up with businesses to look at how they can utilise each other's waste. So it's trying to actually close the system so there isn't any waste. So, we've got schools working on that. We have a number of energy projects going on with schools, looking at energy management in schools, but also linking that particularly with how to ... to climate change and what's happening with climate change and our use of energy and how that's contributing to climate change. Which leads me on to ... we've got a ... we've had for a few years a project going on with the Gambia where we've had teachers exchanging ideas with teachers in the Gambia and there's been resources written for Gambian schools and also for schools over here.
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 271 Duration: 1m39

Co-operating with European partners

Jon: And then we're heavily involved with eco-schools which is a European-wide project. In this country it's administered by a national organisation called ENCAMS, but each county have ... the local authority often takes that on board to really support that. So it's looking at the whole environmental management on the environmental curriculum within schools and how the whole school is involved: the parents, kids, the caretakers, the teachers. Local businesses all get together to look at how the school can manage itself more effectively and how it teaches about environmental issues. So that's like a European kite mark, which we've over the last three years have really been pushing and supporting. And we've now got ... there's about three hundred and sixty schools in the county and there's about a hundred and twenty signed up to eco-schools. And I think it's about thirty that have got the award. There's three different levels of award that you can get: it's from bronze, silver, and then you actually get your green flag that ... which is like fully blown. So it's different stages you can go through. And that's ... We're putting a lot of effort into that because that works alongside other government initiatives that have come out and one of which is healthy schools. And healthy environment also links up with healthy people, so we've batched those two together. So that's an ongoing big project that we've been involved with through ... for a number of years. That's some of them. /
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 246 Duration: 1m31

Daily routines

Sabine: Yes, so do you have a daily routine, so?
Jon: Right. Well, I don't really have a daily routine. My day is ... every day is slightly different. And one ... half of my job's spent running training courses and running a whole training programme for educators that come here from all over the country. The other half of the job is working with schools. So it's sort of two things. On the training side of things, we run an annual programme, mostly of one- or two-, occasionally three-day training courses. It's aimed at environmental or countryside organisations and it's helping them do a better job at educating or a better job at some sort of community development aspect that's linked into environmental issues. So it's probably better just to look over the last week, just to give you an example.
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 138 Duration: 0m57

Running a course

Jon: So, last Tuesday we had a course called 'Natural Performance'. We had - just trying to think who was on that - ... we had a number of people from a couple of national environmental charities, we had an artist on that, we had a teacher on it, we also had a couple of staff from here on it as part of their training. And it was really looking at how you animate the natural world. And how you use masks, and puppets, and movement. And how you get people to actually almost celebrate their local environment through those media. So, that was the course on Tuesday. And that was working alongside an artist who's an expert in that. So, that was Tuesday.
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 122 Duration: 0m49

Organising an excursion

Jon: Then, Wednesday, we had some sixth-form students, which is seventeen-year olds, came down from Walsall through what's called the education-business partnership, which is trying to link teachers and schools with business to see how businesses work. It's mostly sixth-formers who work on this because it's educating them how businesses work. So, they're on a series of trips around the West Midlands: One where they went to visit a landfill site, which is all within an environmental theme. One, they went to an eco-house over in Leicester. They were going to go to some sewage treatment works, they were going to a reservoir and then they came here to look at renewable energy from particularly building design and looking at energy and all that. So, we had a whole day on looking at renewable energy and building design, the sixth formers. So, they got involved in some renewable energy experiments and I did a whole debate thing around renewable energy for them. So, that was Tuesday. No, that was Wednesday.
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Sharing ideas and practice

Jon: Thursday was a course called 'Taking Environmental Youth Work Further', which is aimed at youth workers. So it's people ... it's workers working in the informal setting, not in schools, working in youth clubs. Could be scouts guides or a statutory youth club. And that was really getting people ... we had people ... were getting from all over the country coming to share practice. So, it's people who are doing the job, but wanted to share their practice and improve their practice. So, the whole day was looking at case studies, looking at the projects they're involved with, looking at the principles they work by to see what they could improve. And just sharing ideas on how they could improve their practice. And giving them ideas where they could go for resources, where they could go for money, where they could get advice, nationally and locally. So, that was Thursday.
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 148 Duration: 0m51

Working on a steering committee

Jon: And then Friday. I've completely forgotten what I did Friday. Friday... Oh no, Friday! Yes! Friday! I've got Friday. Friday, I had a meeting down at county hall because we're part of the local authority. And I am on the biodiversity action plan steering group. In the UK, we have ... well, each country has a biodiversity action plan which ... this all came out of the Rio Summit ten, well, eleven years ago almost now - the international biodiversity convention came out of it. And most local governments and local authorities have as a response to that produced a biodiversity action plan to look at how they can preserve biodiversity. So, I'm on that group as the education representative. So, we've the ecologists on it, planners on it, farmers on it. So, we had a meeting in the morning looking at how we can communicate out the ... because we've had a biodiversity action plan that's just being reviewed. We're looking at how to communicate that more to the public. And more to the actual people on the ground who are delivering on biodiversity, like farmers, nature conservation organisations, local communities who may be looking after green space. So, at the moment we're putting together what's called a vision map of the whole county. And we've identified five different landscape types. And we're looking at how do we work with that to get more input from the people who are really impacting on biodiversity, but also how do we get the local community more involved. So, that was the morning.
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 258 Duration: 1m35

Meetings and planning

Jon: And then in the afternoon, that actually fed into the afternoon, because I had a meeting with an environmental artist looking at how we can work with artists more here, but also planning a conference later on in the year looking at good practice with environmental artists and teachers and environmental organisations. So, it'll be a West Midlands conference here. So, it's having a word with her to see the sort of input we could put into that. And what came out of that was we want to decorate this room. Actually, that wall and that wall. And we're putting in it five schools from the five different landscape areas to do some sort of wall hanging with this artist who's ... does ... she's in ... does all sorts ... deals in all sorts of media from felt through to digital media. So, it was an exploratory meeting to see what we were going to do with that and ... so, we've had a meeting with you today, but I'll have to - after I come out of the meeting with you - very quickly to talk to our arts adviser who's ... to see what Marion thought about this. She's got a meeting tomorrow with the head of the centre to try and organise some sort of residency. So, that was Friday. So, that's a typical week really. It's ... It could be all over the place. /
[ video ] [ exercises for this topic ] Word count: 232 Duration: 1m12

Corporate training

Jon: The work we do with business is ... we're a partnership between the local authority, the national grid - because we're on their land - but also Worcester College of Technology. And it was Worcester College of Technology that basically built this building. It was trainees through what's called the Trainee Enterprise Council. So, that partnership came out of that, with their business unit. And what came out of that was ... there was ... we saw there was a need for training for small businesses - or what's called in, well, in the UK they're called SMEs, small and medium enterprises - in environmental management and in environmental systems. So, we now have here - based here but employed by the college, but it's a sort of partnership thing - somebody who goes out to businesses. She'll ... either businesses approach us or she'll go out to businesses to promote environmental management to train them in environmental regulations, but also to actually help them set up environmental management systems. Particularly the main one that is a European system, which is called ISO 14001. So, if companies want to go for that badge, that kite mark, then we'll offer them a training service, but we'll also offer them an advisory service on things they need to do to actually get that ISO mark, it's called. So, it's a two-way process. Sometimes they come to us, sometimes we go to them. So, at the moment - I'll just give you one example - we just got a project probably happening: we're hoping to get some money from the environment agency, which is the government's main environment body, to start working with a particular area just outside Droitwich, training them in environmental regulations, which is ... which will be a bit of a pilot project for the rest of the West Midlands. Because we've done general training - which regulations come into ... but not specific - really just this is what your duty is when it comes to waste, this is what your duty is when it comes to pollution, this is what your duty is when it comes to procurement, this sort of thing.
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List of speakers

Acknowledgements, availability and copyright

Acknowledgements: The project has been supported by the University of Tuebingen. The video interviews have been carried out and recorded by Sabine Braun, Stefanie Hahn, Petra Hoffstaedter and Kurt Kohn. The speakers have agreed to the use of the materials for non-commercial research and education purposes.

Availability of the ELISA corpus: The ELISA corpus is made available by the Department of Applied English Linguistics at the University of Tuebingen. It is freely available at this website for study, teaching and research purposes, and copies of the transcripts may be distributed, as long as this statement of availability appears in the text. However, if any portion of this material is to be used in educational presentations and publications, permission must be obtained in advance. Commercial use of any form is excluded. For further information about permissions, please contact Dr. Sabine Braun at s.braun(at)surrey.ac.uk.

Copyright of the ELISA corpus: Department of Applied English Linguistics, University of Tuebingen.