How Learning Outdoors Helps Young People

Video Transcription

Hi, my name is Dom, Dom Mian, I am the managing director, here at Woodpecker Court. I’ve been here since we first started this journey, back in 2015.

I think for me, young people, over recent years especially, have really struggled with mainstream settings in classrooms, so the idea was to get young people away from that setting, away from the pressures of school, away from the magnolia painted classrooms, to get them into the outdoors in the middle of nowhere and then start to develop learning packages that not only were classroom based, in terms of their content, but also completely linked to the experiences that we put together outdoors.

Hi, my name is Lewis, I’ve been here since November. I was home schooled for six years, had no social skills or anything, so coming here I used to just sit in the corner and just keep to myself and not speak to anyone, and being here I have just helped so much. I have just started to, I have made loads of friends and started to come out myself and gained so much more confidence in myself.

When you came to us, you barely said a word, and then slowly but surely, you started to trust people. You started to really shine in the classroom when you started to believe that you could, and I think the big wow moment for me, was the day you passed your first exam, when you came out of that with a massive smile on your face, feeling a sense of immense pride in at having achieved that.

Something you never thought you would achieve in your life, and to see that in you was just amazing. I might be studying cooking when I leave, so I’m a big fan of cooking, especially cooking for loads of people. I never really cooked, it wasn’t my kind of thing until I came here, now I fell in love with it.

So all year round we raise money for the stuff that we grow, make and sell, and we put it into a big pot, that comes to every year we will go on a trip to wherever we want to go.

Hi my name is Oliver. I’ve been here six months, and my job here is feeding the animals, because I’m an animal person. I like looking after them, I like feeding them, cleaning them out, and this one is Elvis, we’ve had him a couple of months or a couple of weeks, and he’s the best runt that I’ve been attached to.

Olly came to us not really believing himself or his own ability. He’s relaxed, he’s built a friendship group, and Olly himself will move on into work very successfully. So I think what changes have I noticed, it’s just phenomenal, and it’s exceeded my expectations.