Training and Learning Programmes

Training and learning programmes for schools, families and adults.  Programmes designed to:

• Ensure the perpetuation of traditional crafts necessary for the maintenance of the landscape
• Provide opportunities for local people to develop skills to enable them to engage with their local landscape and its conservation
• Enhance personal development and improve employment prospects
• Increase knowledge

Historically, making charcoal for fuel, hedge-laying and dry-stone walling would have been done out of necessity.  Over the years many of these specialist skills have declined and are in danger of being lost altogether.

The DerwentWISE training and learning programmes attempted to reinvigorate some of the skills by offering both formal and informal courses to adults and children. Local people of all ages had the opportunity to acquire new skills and take part in activities such as wildlife recording and countryside management.  It is hoped that the Scheme will enable local people to contribute towards the sustainability of the Lower Derwent Valley.

Forestwise – Though the ForestWISE project fifteen participants were trained to become Forest Schools leaders.  Forest Schools is a modern teaching method where the classroom is taken outside and the children learn about their surrounding but also other subjects from the curriculum such as maths and science. This pupils who take part benefit from improved social skills as well as better concentration and behaviours.

Get Skilled – A Heritage Skills Training Programme designed to complement the conservation projects and community aspirations of the DerwentWISE scheme.

Wildlife Guardians – The project provided opportunities for local people, including individuals of all ages, families, and community and youth groups to participate in wildlife recording and countryside management.

Activities included surveying, recording and practical conservation tasks and took place throughout the valley, enabling people to contribute to the sustainability of the Lower Derwent Valley.

It incorporated initiatives such as ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and ‘Wildlife Rangers’. Survey results fed directly into Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s database to form a baseline against which changes in species distribution can be measured in the future.

Working with stone – This project was designed to engage people practically with stone and lime. It compromised of a comprehensive series of linked modules exploring briefly geological origins, understanding stone in the landscape, buildings, making use of NSC’s national building stone reference collection, but concentrated on basic skills in stone with a particular emphasis on conservation – dry stone walling/ masonry/ stone conservation and repair/carving and sculpting/use of lime, sourcing and matching