FSA Suffolk aims to provide support, friendship and
inspiration for all Forest School practitioners in Suffolk.
inspiration for all Forest School practitioners in Suffolk.
Our Committee
Chair - MellMell is currently The Green Light Trust's Forest School Delivery Manager and Tutor. She is also a Director of Kinda Education where she facilitates forest school sessions weekly at Kinda forest school. Kinda Education is a multi-generational, nature-based sociocratic community interest company.Mell has been facilitating Nature Connection work for over 25 years, working with all ages and abilities, facilitating through the theories and ethos of Forest School, Earth Education and deep nature connection. Mell started to work within this field after many years of environmental campaigning, believing that if people felt connected to the natural world, they would more readily take an active role in fostering the sustainability of the planet. Mell was a co-creator/director of a nature based democratic small school ‘Wild Meadows’ . Together with the parents and children they built a straw bale building as a classroom then developed the space and facilitated activities to learn together in a child-led and child-centred way. Mell's passion is nature-based , multi-generational, sociocratic education and she is passionate about creating spaces where we can all grow together into resilient, kind communities
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Membership & Communications Officer - Emma KEmma is a Wild Learning Officer with Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Over her 17 years with SWT, Emma has worked initially at Lackford Lakes near Bury St Edmunds and is now based Foxburrow Farm near Woodbridge running environmental education visits for schools, families, home educated children, Young Wardens and Wild Tots. Emma completed her Forest School training with Bridgewater college in 2006 and since then has worked with several groups over the years from nurseries and primaries to special schools and PRU groups. She also co-leads the Trust’s accredited Forest School training courses.
Emma has lived all her life in Suffolk, bar the 3 years she spent studying Ecology at Lancaster University, and now lives just outside Framlingham with her husband Stu, daughter Daisy and two loony springer spaniels. Just like Emma’s own childhood, Daisy is a total wild child and as a family they love spending time outdoors, walking, playing in the woods, jumping in puddles, ‘building’ swings, camping and visiting our beautiful windswept coast. Emma has always found that nature grounds her, calms her, excites and inspires her and loves seeing that passion and connection grow within Daisy and others. |
Events & Social Media -
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Minutes Secretary -
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Fundraising - CharlotteCharlotte Atkinson is an experienced Forest School Leader and an FSA endorsed trainer. She lives and works at ‘Charlotte’s Wood’ in Wilby where she runs weekly parent and toddler Forest School sessions, holiday clubs, woodland experience days and training.
Charlotte’s Wood is a 2.5 acre mixed woodland with a log cabin that is used for training and overnight accommodation. Charlotte also manages two holiday lodges that are situated on the edge of the woodland. She moved to Suffolk in 2016 from Liverpool where she worked for 6 years as a headteacher following a long career in primary education. Charlotte is passionate about the positive impact on health and well-being of spending time in nature, loves the practical nature of her job and working with children. Charlotte also works as a primary school consultant and in her spare time she teaches people how to Nordic Walk! |
Committee Member - ElizabethElizabeth Swift grew up on the beaches and mud flats of Suffolk – with broad open skies and grey seas. She is a Forest School leader and trainer, a lecturer and an early years consultant. She divides her working time between training Forest School leaders, lecturing on early years degree courses and singing with people outdoors. In 2011, she set up huathe with Carol Middleton to help reconnect adults and children to nature, to each other and to themselves.
Huathe draws on first hand international teaching in nature connection combined with a deep understanding of child development and group dynamics. Elizabeth enjoys the local (working outdoors children under 5 and their carers); the national (delivering training and CPD across East Anglia and the South East); and the international (speaking at conferences and training Forest School leaders across in Ireland, China and the US. She is inspired equally by a love of the outdoors, the child led parenting ethos of land connected, indigenous cultures, the teaching of Jon Young, and the writing of Jay Griffiths. Her main interests are in children’s holistic development through play and the positive effects of nature connection. Her outdoor singing groups, FireChoir, are about people connecting to nature, to each other and to themselves. |