- My role at the Sutton Courtenay Environmental Centre is two-fold. As well as running the educational programme, I help to maintain the centre, which includes everything from looking after the building to emptying the cesspit.
Sutton Courtenay is a 13-acre nature reserve where we work with children in an educational capacity, helping open their eyes to nature, and hopefully helping them to think a bit more about how they interact with it. We work with children of all ages. For the young ones, it can be as simple as letting them run around and get their hands dirty, whereas older children study themes such as ecological buildings and carbon footprints.
We're not slaves to the curriculum. My role is to enhance and broaden the learning and knowledge of children. There is not a lot of written work during a visit as the aim is to get children outside and get hands-on. Some of the younger children expect that they will see badgers running around when they visit, so I have to manage their expectations. We are not a zoo, but some children are amazingly excited just seeing a wild rabbit for the first time.
Having worked as a teacher before retraining for an HND in countryside management, I appreciate that children come here excited and you can harness that feeling of adventure. You have to let them make their own discoveries without letting their excitement overflow.
Schools use us in different ways. For some, we can kick-start a project, while others see us as a reminder for subjects studied. We are trying to extend the experience with follow-on activities. The philosophy is that we try to get children to learn, empathise and ultimately make an eco-pledge to do something differently at home.
