Sue: This is Bishops Wood Environmental Centre in Worcestershire in England. And the building that we're sitting in now was completed and opened ten years ago. We got our tenth birthday this year. We take schools and we do conferences and all sorts of groups, anybody who wants to learn about the environment and how they fit into it and how they can help the environment. And I work here as the forest school leader, and I worked here in different capacities on and off for the last seven years, and now I've been forest school leader here for two years. And forest school works mainly with nursery-age children in this setting. So, I take small groups of up to thirteen children out every day into the woods for about an hour and a half at a time. And it's primarily a child-led thing that we do at forest school here. Sue: I did a B.Ed. degree about twelve years ago and one of our biology teachers brought us up here for a field trip. And when I came here, I thought this is where I want to work. But once I graduated there weren't any jobs here, so I went off and worked at a school. And then I - what did I do then? - I came back and I was I came here as a volunteer for a couple of years. And then I worked I got a grant from the National Grid and I worked as an Agenda 21 officer, taking a concept of Agenda 21 into schools in the area. And then I got a job at a local in a local district council as an environmental awareness officer. And I worked there for three years and then I left there and then I came back here. And I did some catering and some teaching, and then I got the job as forest school leader. So, it's a bit of a complicated route, but I am here now. Sue: I'm full-time here and on Mondays I don't have any groups out, so that's taken up mainly with admin, this sort of planning and evaluation of the groups that I have out. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I often go and collect the children in a minibus, which we get from the local county council. And I go and fetch them in the bus, bring them up to the site. We go down and enjoy being out in the woodland and then - this is just a brief outline - and then drive them back to their setting. And because they are nursery-age children, it's either a morning or an afternoon session, so it they're not out for very long. We go down we've got an acre and a half of fenced-off woodland down there, and the children have a structure to the day in the session, and they are introduced to sort of health and safety rules, as well. But there are games that we play. So, they have a good time and they think it's fun. And then there's some child-led activities, so they might shelter build do some shelter building, they might do some art work, they might invent some games or do some physical things with ropes and swings and bridges and things like that. And then they go back to their nursery. And then it all happens again in the afternoon, and that's generally what happens most days of the week. Sue: What they really do like is the shelter building. We start that off by telling them the story of Eeyore. Do you have Winnie the Pooh? The Piglet and all those stories? There's a story in there where Eeyore built his own shelter. And then Winnie the Pooh and Piglet knock it down and build another one. And that's got lots of things in it that little children really like about the story. It's got a happy ending, it's got a 'whooh' bit in the middle. And then they have to go and build a shelter for Eeyore, and I got a little toy Eeyore that they have to build a shelter for. So they enjoy that. And then the next week, we go make a big one, that the children can get in as well, but using the same principles - collecting the right size sticks and putting the right kind of roofing on. So that's really good activity, everybody feels very good at the end of that, because they can all get into something that they've built. Jon: So, is there any particular aspect about forest school that you really that has really clicked with you? Sue: That's really clicked with me? Jon: Yes, just reflecting on your last two years. What's been that sort of highlight of the whole thing? Sue: The highlights come towards the end of the sessions really. When the adults can step back and the children kind of take over. And they're happy and they're secure and they know what they're doing. And we just kind of melt away into the undergrowth as it were. And the children get on and devise games and activities and . It's difficult, it's really difficult to describe, but one year, they had a whole they built a space rocket. And the boys were on the space rocket. It was a very simple thing, with just logs and things. But the girls didn't have a role and they they were at an age where they'd split into boys and girls. And so, the boys were in this rocket, having a great time. And the girls decided they were going to be the stars, twinkling past as the rocket went through space. So, they just spent a long time doing that. And we were just standing back watching that going: 'Oh, look at that! Isn't that nice?'. So, you know, things like that, really. Steffi: And in the beginning, when they come here, do you sometimes have the feeling that they feel awkward in the nature? Sue: Yes, they're very little and it's a big adventure to climb onto a minibus and drive off with somebody that they don't know very well. Though, I do go into the school, into the nursery first, for a couple of sessions, so that they get to know me. And also to we give all the children a set of water-proof trousers and jackets, which they're not used to. So we try them on and go and run around outside and practise rolling over on the grass in them and things like that. So, they've had all that. But again, it's still you know, actually to get on the bus and be driven and get off the bus, they are a little bit nervous at first. And they tend to stay together like a flock of ducks, you know, and but you notice as they've been coming out into the woodland more and more, they spread out more and, you know, they'll go off in little groups or individually. But at first, yes, they are quite nervous and they hang together. Sabine: And where do they come from and who are the parents? Sue: Where do they come from? Different nurseries, actually. We worked with nurseries which are attached to primary schools and also private nurseries in this country. So, you get a big variety of children with very different needs, very different abilities, interests and attitudes as well. So, that's quite interesting and challenging really devising opportunities for them all to experience something that will stretch and challenge them all. Yes, so it's quite a big variety of backgrounds they all come from as well. And I have worked with older children as well from pupil referral units which take children who can't cope in mainstream school, and they're taken out and taught in much smaller groups. Obviously these are children with challenging behaviour and lots of difficulties. But when they come out to forest school, they usually respond quite positively being out there. And we do sort of bigger sort of projects with them using lots of tools and creating making things, sort of woodwork and carpentry. Skills that they use out there. Sue: Well, it's been great being here. But I've applied to work with VSO and so I'm going to Thailand in March in a few weeks time to work there for a couple of years in an environmental education centre. So, I'm very grateful to the people here who have given me such great training and experience to enable me to take it to the other side of the world, basically. Thank you. % % 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. %