About us
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Woodcraft School are specialist providers of high quality bushcraft courses in the UK from beginner to instructor level. We offer courses in wild food, bow making, bushcraft, primitive technology, natural history and much more. Most courses are based near Midhurst in West Sussex. Course prices include VAT, camping, food and materials with the exception of our instructor programme which is self catering.
We have won awards and our instructors are considered to be some of the best teachers of bushcraft in the country. We have an 85% return rate and many students have done ALL of our courses!
Our site is a stunning 450 acres of ancient woodland with lakes, streams and meadows. We always have extra volunteers from our one year programme helping out so the teaching ratio is mostly 1: 3.
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Updates
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Last year we were featured on the NCFE website as a case study on how we are using our bespoke qualifications. Read all about it here by clicking the NCFE logo below
Our Reference page is slowly becoming a great place to find articles, advice on Forest Schools and outdoor education plus websites and information that enhance the outdoor classroom–please note it is a ‘works in progress' and we are going to be adding to this continually…
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Save this page to favourites for all our sightings, recipes and uses for emerging plants, berries etc in season. Out now are fungi and what to look for ....read more
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Site Map |
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Why choose us?
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Our company is dedicated to making outdoor education an innovative learning experience. We strive to make the student the centre of our courses and want clients to leave us talking about what they have learned and not how just good our instructors are, if this is not the case you have wasted your money and merely watched us showing off our skills. We also strive to make this knowledge part of your everyday life and not only the preserve of wilderness trips. Working on the premise that human kind evolved using tools in the natural world, it is our belief that physically and psychologically we have much to gain from the practice of bushcraft and natural history study.
The learning process
It is our belief that learning should be verified, firstly to ensure the student owns the new knowledge, secondly to fill in any gaps in that knowledge and also to make sure we are doing our jobs correctly, namely passing on skills in a form that the student can retain. To be effective and fair we also believe that verification of learning should be standardised to give each student the same equal learning opportunity. To that end we employ nationally recognised standards of assessment and quality control.
We are the orginators of the NCFE awards in Bushcraft and are constantly pushing the boundaries for nature based education. Many companies are licensing our awards in response.
Woodcraft School hold the Investing in Quality Licence with the NCFE. We have been awarded this prestigious title because we have been through a highly rigorous approval process that is normally set aside for large schools and further education centres and we are assessed biannually to retain this title. |
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| New courses for 2012: |
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Identification, Uses and General Interest Days - : these are now being held at the Sustainability Centre in East Meon, near Petersfield in Hampshire. All courses come with a Certificate of Attendance.
Click here for more information
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1 |
Fire by Friction Day |
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Bow Making |
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3 |
Mammal Tracks and Signs |
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Animal Trailing |
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5 |
Hedgerow and Woodland Plants - identification and uses |
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Tree Identification -trees in leaf |
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Winter Twig Identification |
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Wild Plants for Food and Medicine |
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Essential Tool Use |
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Walks and Talks - Connecting with our Ancestors |
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Fungi Foray |
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Craft Courses at the Weald and Downland Museum in Singleton, West Sussex.
Click here for more information
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Traditional Longbow Making
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| NCFE and Professional Qualifications at Woodcraft School |
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New- Licence our Intermediate Bushcraft Award - New
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If you have recognised bushcraft experience and are interested in licensing our NCFE Intermediate Bushcraft Award Level 2 for 14-19 years olds then please click here for more details. We have programmes available at Levels 1 and 2.
Please note, you should already be running accredited programmes from other sources or learning bodies and have experienced staff in place to deliver these programmes. If you have achieved our Instructor course or our Advanced Bushcraft Award then you may be able to run this 14-19yr old qualification above, subject to approval criteria.
Please follow this link for more information on this and other schools running the award around the country |
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History
Our company began in 1992 as Woodcraft. It was a small company offering habitat management, arboriculture and the production of traditional crafts. We began to teach these skills at schools, colleges and for private groups and then in 1997 Woodcraft ran courses for
a leading bushcraft company. By 2000 Woodcraft was running its own bushcraft courses and in 2004 became Woodcraft School Ltd.
More reasons to choose us!
Woodcraft School boasts some of the most skilled and award winning instructors in the UK, with experience gained not from practicing for months or even years, but for decades. Our assistant instructors have all completed our bushcraft leadership course, which in itself is a vigorous training programme, and have been asked to join us because they stood out amongst this extremely high calibre of students. Guest instructors are picked using the same criteria and in our eyes are very well versed and competent in their chosen subjects. We have trained thousands of students over the years using the following ethos; if we can’t do it ourselves to a very high level then we don’t teach it! In this we include the art of teaching as much as the art of bushcraft.
We are also pleased to announce that we are selected by West Sussex County Council as an approved supplier of outdoor education. |
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Photos by Gary Oldmeadow, a student from BTCV
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