These are some of the activities we have participated in as part of our John Muir Award this year. Our sessions have had a profound impact on the woodland, encouraging wildlife and allowing more young people to safely access the wood.
Alternative Education Tutor
Job Description
Alternative Education tutors support our young people by planning, delivering and evaluating 1-1 and small group sessions. The programmes we run incorporate activities such as art, gardening, science, environmental education, forest/beach school and bushcraft, with an outdoor element always at the heart of the programme. They are differentiated both at programme and session level to maximise engagement and to ensure our offer is student-centred. The young people we work with on these sessions are usually struggling to access mainstream education and require high levels of individual support.
We are not purely an intervention service and we aim for all our students to leave our programmes with an external qualification or award of some type. The successful candidate will be delivering accredited lowland and environmental leadership courses at L2 and L3 and will hold an outdoor walking leadership qualification – for example South West Summer Moorland Leader or Mountain Training Lowland Leader. You will also have a background working with young people with SEND. This role will involve working with young people on a 1-1 basis in remote locations and you will also be required to drive young people to sessions in your own vehicle.
The postholder will primarily work during the week at term-time, although we also run weekend community sessions and holiday projects through the school holidays and you will need to be available for these sessions as and when required. This is an exciting time to join us because our woodland site is rapidly being developed for educational use and we are looking for people to help us realise our vision for the site.
Responsibilities
The post holder will have the following responsibilities and duties:
Person Specification (Essential)
Person Specification (Desirable)
Please contact rich@taleblazers.org.uk for more information and an application form.
Application deadline: 20/07/2024
Expected start date: 01/09/2024
We’ve got a new toilet at Treacle Valley, some photos of the build process are here and you can also find out how our ‘loo with a view’ is helping families in Nepal.
We take our obligations as a not-for-profit Community Interest Company very seriously. Being a CIC means the directors of the company do not benefit personally from the success of the business; any profits that the company ultimately makes will benefit the wider community and, more specifically, the organisation named in our ‘asset lock’. In our case, this means that any profits Taleblazers ultimately makes will be donated to the Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team based in Ashburton.
However, we intend to be running Taleblazers for a very long time! This means that DSRT could be waiting a long time before sharing any financial success. We have therefore decided to make a donation of £250 as a New Year’s gift to DSRT, as a kind of interim statement of our ongoing investment in the community and our desire for other organisations we love to benefit from our success.
Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team are a voluntary charity who help the emergency services to search for and rescue lost, missing, injured and vulnerable people. We most frequently associate them with finding lost walkers on the moors but they are also active in helping to find vulnerable people such as people with dementia, children and people experiencing mental health crises. Over 90% of their income is from donations and we are delighted to be in a position to support them.
At the same time, we have also decided to donate £100 to one of our favourite charities, the John Muir Trust, who conserve, protect and restore wild places across the UK. We share their passion for wild places and their John Muir Award programmes are central to our education work.
Crafting is something we do lots of at Taleblazers. It is a form of self-expression that allows people to create beautiful and useful objects and is more than just a fun hobby. It has also been shown to have a number of benefits for mental and physical health.
Exploring coastal erosion on a beautiful autumn day at the Ness
Despite some very heavy rain overnight we had an amazing turnout for Earthworks, with about 15 people attending! This took us a bit by surprise as we thought the woods would be far too soggy for most families, but our crew are a hardy lot and soon there was tea being brewed and work being done.
Archery, an ancient art and sport, has captivated the human imagination for centuries. There is definitely something uniquely fulfilling about crafting your own bow and arrow, even if it’s just for play! Emily demonstrates her process in a short video.
We explore how child-led exploration and questioning can lead to meaningful learning experiences in nature.
Nature has a remarkable way of bringing a sense of wonder and curiosity to learning. From building shelters to outdoor cooking, these hands-on experiences not only teach valuable outdoor skills but also cultivate a profound appreciation for the outdoors.