A DEVON organisation offering an alternative educational provision based entirely outdoors is celebrating its first 10 years with a bumper crop of new sites and services and a rapidly expanding workforce.
Founded in 2011 with the opening of a forest school in Exmouth, The Outdoors Group is now the largest provider of forest school services in the UK and employs more than five times as many people as it did just two years ago.
During that time the group has become the largest outfit of its kind in the country in terms of services offered. It now provides a range of outdoor-based activities to support not just education but also training and recreation.
In 2019, the group had 17 staff members; it now employs more than 100 people from teachers and therapists to estate managers, HR and finance.
HQ AT WESTERN LODGE
The investment and expansion have been made possible by an impressive increase in turnover during the past three years from £385,930 in 2018-19 to the current year-end turnover of around £2 million.
The group now runs five forest schools plus special schools in Exeter, Tiverton and South Brent; a specialist learning programme for young people struggling in mainstream education; training for teachers, forest school leaders and school volunteers; toddler groups and holiday clubs; yoga and rewilding experience weekends.
New sites added this year alone include Ilfracombe in North Devon, Tiverton in Mid Devon and Totnes in South Devon, giving the group widespread coverage of the county.
KINDERGARTEN IN CREDITON
Discussions are currently underway with a landowner in East Devon to provide a new location in the area and a kindergarten will be opening in Crediton next Spring.
Influenced by the Scandinavian forest schools of the 1950s, The Outdoors Group’s services are centred around using natural facilities in the open air, primarily in woodland, giving young people the chance to explore and enjoy nature and the environment.
While the emphasis is always on fun, the group has a serious long-term goal.
Tom Lowday, who set up the business with co-director Shevek Pring, explains: “When we first started forest school, the concept was much more about home education groups, holiday clubs and birthday parties. This soon developed into a desire to meet the growing need for an alternative education model.
“The introduction of our Transitional Learning Programme and Outdoors School has had a massive impact on a lot of young learners who just don’t fit into conventional education and methods of learning.”
The group continues its search for woodlands in Devon to rent or buy that meet its site criteria. There are also longer-term plans to implement a franchise system working with like-minded people around the UK to take the concept and provision to an even wider demographic.