It's Quality that Counts
Quality and “best practice” are important elements of the Northern Ireland Tree Campaign’s ethos. To this end, Conservation Volunteers’ staff and Key Volunteers from across Northern Ireland attended a rigorous, one day training course on “Autumn Seed Harvest Workshop Delivery to Primary Schools and Community Groups”.
The quality of workshop delivery is paramount. The workshops that are delivered through the Northern Ireland Tree Campaign to Schools and Community Groups may be free but we aim to dispel the idea that a free course is a poor course!
Those present learnt amongst things, the background to the Autumn Seed Harvest Workshops, why growing our native trees is important to local biodiversity, how to process different pods, keys, fruits, cones and nuts, and how to relate this information to the Northern Ireland Curriculum. In addition part of the afternoon was spent improvising a seed workshop, where the participants were encouraged to think like primary school children in order to generate potential questions and scenarios that might arise when delivering a workshop for real. This improvisation turned out to be a very easy exercise for some! But in general was a fun and very useful exercise for all.
For many in attendance, this was a refresher course. For others, a large amount of the sometimes quite complex material was brand new. Those new to Autumn Seed Harvest Workshop delivery will now go through a period of “shadowing” experienced Autumn Seed Harvest deliverers to hone their skills and make sure that the quality is up to the standard that the Northern Ireland Tree Campaign expects.