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Shrewsbury, Shropshire, United Kingdom
FSC Preston Montford has been an outdoor classroom since 1957 and is a Field Studies Council centre. We deliver curriculum related outdoor education by the experts; from pre-school to Masters level; for infants, school students, undergraduates and enquiring adults with an interest in the natural world. Courses for schools and individuals. A venue for others to use; with bed space for 130, catering facilities and 7 fully equipped teaching and meeting spaces.

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Wild Skills Week 

Growing Confidence Project 

https://www.field-studies-council.org/courses-and-experiences/opportunities-for-16-25-year-olds/growing-confidence/

Over October half term we had a group of young people staying at Preston Montford for a week packed with outdoors activities - canoeing, bushcraft, a visit to the Stipserstones, making bird boxes and conservation tasks. 

They completed their John Muir Discovery Award and many also attended for their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. 

At the end of the week they wrote something about their week for their John Muir Award. Here is what they wrote.

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Day by day

A poem about each day of the course (bushcraft, canoeing, Stipserstones, conservation tasks, making bird boxes).

Blow by blow a sooty smell turned to ash burning cascades of flying lights as natural fibres crack

Stroke by stroke endless water moved further and further from the eagerly dipped paddles

Gust by gust the bloody butchered stones stretch far beyond the eye

Chop by chop relentless vines encroached onto ripened ready Land

Nail by nail birds fly from far and wide to see the inept builder of their home 


A poem

The earth a brilliant red

Hand hewn cliffs tower over the trees

Over the carpet of needles and leaves of

Orange and gold, rustling with wind as…

The sky a looming grey

Storm torn clouds filled with rain

That pours into puddles and pools of

Mud and water that contrasts the trees…

Growing in vibrant greens and hues of

Life, the bark hidden by layers of soft and

Somehow beautiful moss, lichen

That teems with life and animals…

Squirrels bounce from limb to limb and

Birds soar above us, they cry to the wind

The rain, creeping in the leaves the insects

Are shaken off as we feed our fire…

The flames start small, a smouldering of

Dry wood and smoke, the heat is welcome as

The fire grows and dances in the cold air

A grey ash, embers fall through the air…

Drifting then landing softly on

The earth a brilliant red

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Canoe Day

The beginning of the day was quite difficult after not having done canoeing in many years so it took me a long time to get used to. Since I was at the back of the canoe, my role was to steer and ensure we are heading in the right direction. Since we were travelling in a canal we had to ensure we were constantly travelling in a straight line and a small adjustment to steering could have led us into a bush and crash.

In the beginning it was very hard as we often ended up travelling in zigzags and took us a while to get a good pattern in terms of how we travelled. When it got to lunch, we had to take the canoes out of the canal and carry it across a lock and this was when it started raining and everyone’s moods went down. This was when we tried a different approach by switching places to see if our teamwork would improve and travelling would be better, but I discovered that I wasn’t very good at being as the motor in the front. To change this, we stopped and changed back to our initial places and decided to build our communication skills and talk to each other in the best approach to avoid a bad situation like crashing. By the end of the day I started to really enjoy myself especially after the sun came out and everyone’s mood and happiness improved and I found myself enjoying my time with my group. 


                                                              

Wild Skills Week

Only a few days before Halloween, we were up on the bleak and rocky moorlands of the Stiperstones. The rain was just easing, but the sky was still quite grey despite the lack of fog. On such a day, at such a time of year, one could almost imagine the faeries amassing to ride forth. With the walls of the world feeling thin, I found the tale of Wild Edric stirring in my mind.

In the distance loomed large rocks, and small stones were scattered over the moor. The ground felt as if it had been just inundated by the autumn rains after a slightly drier summer. Growing amongst the rocks were clumps of heather, no longer purple but green and brown. And growing amongst the heather one could see their cousins growing- bilberry, and once you got your eye in you could something else. This, I was informed, was cowberry; something I should have recognised but, out the field, did not initially do so.

On we walked, towards the distant, huge rocks. Up in the sky a bird appeared. It seemed quite large, but as it approached it become clear it was no bird of prey, but a Corvid. Its wings were jagged, but I couldn’t get a very clear view of its tail. Sara informed us that the bird was a Raven. Ravens are beautiful birds, highly social and intelligent, and they have such a bleak wildness to their atmosphere. A wanderer might considerer Ravens to be a joy of the Stiperstones. But they were not all there was to see here.

As we were walking towards those looming rocks, we came across another sign of intelligence. Smaller chunks of quartzite had been collected together and piled up into a cairn, located at where three paths met. And further beyond the Cairn, an enormous quartzite outcrop, several in fact. If you looked sideways, one could almost suppose one of them could serve as a chair for some legendary giant. There are some that say that giant is not mortal but the very Lord of the Hills, hence the name given to one of the outcrops- the Devil’s chair. Together with the tale of Wild Edric, this a hill steeped in the mythology of people.

And all the while, as a group of upright apes contemplate their faerie stories, the ravens above keep their own vigil. Who knows how they might see the world, see these moors?  Meanwhile, slowly, the processes of weathering continue to shape the landscape as geological processes shaped the landscape since the Cambrian time and before.

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Wild Skills Week Review

Day 1 – Bushcraft Skills

Throughout the day we focused on the skills of:

Fire building

Removing fire safely to leave no trace

Making natural survival resources – nettle string

One of the main things I took away from the day was the emphasis placed on understanding why we were doing certain activities, such as the importance of safe fire removal. We thought about how many of the techniques will have originated from knowledge being passed down orally throughout history – I thought this was an interesting and new approach to an activity which I had done previously.

Day 2 – Canoeing and Mammal Traps

Taking a 12km journey down the canal acted as a good team building activity as we had to encourage each other to remain positive despite the bad weather conditions.

Throughout the journey, observing the surrounding plants and taking photos allowed us to explore the environment.

The evening consisted of making Longworth mammal traps. I found understanding why trapping and recording local mammals was equally as important as physically positioning them in contributing to my knowledge and experience in conservation.

Day 3 – A Visit to the Stiperstones

Botany was a new concept introduced to day 3, allowing me to identify plants in the heather moorland habitat such as common heather and bilberry.

Quadrat sampling of the plant populations introduced me to some of the methods used by the local wildlife trusts to conserve the natural environment. This also helped me to build on my current knowledge from A levels.

Day 4 – Conservation at Nesscliffe

By collaborating with Shropshire Wildlife Trust, we worked to reduce the coverage of Rhododendron which we learnt to be minimally useful in supporting other forest species or maintaining species richness.

I found this to be a therapeutic process which would make a lasting impact on the local environment.

In the evening we looked at the challenges wildlife trusts can face in maintaining the balance between maintaining the local economy and protecting the local area.

Day 5 – Bird boxes and completing the award


Monday:

Began with meeting the group before moving on to bush craft activities such as starting a fire and creating string using nettles. 

Tuesday:

Today was exploring the local area by canoeing on a canal. We explored wildlife and plant life in the area as well as learning to control a canoe.

During the evening we set up mammal traps to collect information on the mammals in the local area.

Wednesday:

We began with opening the mammal traps which we set up the night before. Overall we found 2 mammals, a vole and a mouse and surprisingly a bird which quickly flew off. In the day we visited the Stiperstones in the Shropshire hills where we learned about wildlife and plants such as the heather, which is the only habitat for the red grouse which lives there.

Thursday:

Conservation tasks were the agenda for today. We visited Nesscliffe to remove the invasive rhododendron which was damaging the land and preventing anything else from growing. To finish we took a walk around the area to have a look at the views and explore the area.

Friday:

On the last day we made some bird boxes which we will take home and place out to give the birds a place to live.

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Discover 

Shrewsbury, Shropshire  

Stipertones Hills

Very windy but it has great views      

You can see for miles
Snailbeach
Old mining place
Recovering broken areas
Lots of history
Nesscliffe Woods
Beautiful woods full of trees
Red cliffs
Nice walks
Explore
Bushcraft
Fires
Nettle ropes
Canoeing
Teamwork
Rain and hot chocolate
Animal trapping
Identifying types of animal
Wren, voles and mice
Stiperstones
Amazing views
Rock scrambling
Plant sampling
Nesscliffe
Conserving woods
Observing trees and plants
Creating bonfires
Walking down steep paths
Making bird boxes
Creating homes