The Wyld Team

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Sarah Slocombe

Manager
Qualified Teacher Status
Forest School Leader L3
Safeguarding L3
Paediatric First Aid
Outdoor First Aid
Food Hygiene L2
Designated Safeguarding Lead


Sarah Slocombe is a primary teacher gone Wyld!

Originally from rural Wiltshire, Sarah spent her youth climbing trees, making dens and reading books. She studied for her BEd degree in Sussex, and spent 20 years teaching in both primary and pre-schools. Here, she raised her family close to the beautiful Ashdown Forest. After becoming a qualified level 3 Forest School Leader, Sarah moved to North Devon to run Two Rivers Forest School Kindergarten. Moving to Cornwall and finding a suitable woodland site enabled Sarah to create Wyld Thyngz Forest School Kindergarten.

Click here to watch Sarah read stories

Jayne

Jayne Butland

L3 Diploma in Children and Young People's Workforce
Forest School Leader L3
Safeguarding L3
Food Hygiene L2
Paediatric First Aid
Health and Safety Lead
SENDCO

Jayne is a friendly and positive Wyld Thyngz leader who has a passion for promoting local businesses and communities through sustainable woodland. She encourages freedom for children to explore and gently guides their growth and learning. With her level 3 diploma in Children and Young People’s Workforce and five years of experience in schools, nurseries and residential homes, Jayne is an excellent addition to Wyld Thyngz.

Jayne has a level 3 childcare qualification and level 3 forest school training. She has a paediatric and outdoor first aid qualification and a food hygiene certificate.

Beth

Beth Anderson

Level 3 childcare
Training for Forest School Level 3
Safeguarding L3
Food Hygiene L2

For over a decade Beth has been working passionately with children in a number of different roles including: inclusion manager, teaching assistant, nanny and an Ofsted graded; Outstanding childminder.

She has always loved the outdoors and has spent most of her life exploring beautiful Devon and Cornwall.

Through her years of training in her childminding career, Beth learnt more and more about the importance of play and when she and her soon to be husband welcomed their first son into the world she knew that they would home educate their children. She now has two sons who are both home educated and join us in the woods.

Beth has a true passion for learning and challenges and has a level 3 diploma in children and young people's workforce. She has studied an introduction to Forest School Diploma and is currently at Duchy College studying for her Forest School Leader Training and a Foraging Diploma course online.

Future studying for Beth will include Forest Bathing and more foraging courses.

Beth's hobbies include wild swimming, forest gardening, wellbeing, mindfulness, forest bathing, Aromatherapy, caring for rescue animal companions and wild camping.

Nikki

Nicki Townsend

Childcare Level 3
Food hygiene Level 2
Safeguarding Level 3
NVQ II Early Years Care and Education
Training for Forest School Leader Level 3 in 2023

Nicki has always been passionate about working with children, training as a nursery nurse and working in a variety of nursery and school settings before spending 2 years working as a nanny.

Nicki has 3 children, two who join us in the woodz, and a third who can’t wait to be old enough to do the same. She has home educated her eldest, believing that life has so much learning in it, and that the school system would not be the best education for him.

As a young adult, she was the last person you’d find outdoors, but she fell in love with nature and its many benefits after the birth of her eldest child (now 8). Since then, she has tried to spend as much time outside as possible and is passionate about encouraging and enabling other families to do the same.

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Archie

Doggie insurance
Passed a people-friendly assessment with flying colours!

Meet Archie! 🐶

He is our Forest School Pooch and joins us every day in the woods! He is a very friendly, calm 5 year old Jack Russell who passed his behaviour with children assessment with flying colours! 

Archie loves to bimble about the woods, generally doing his own thing, never straying very far from Beth. That is until the soft cosy blankets come out for some reading or playing a game of Poo Bingo! When this happens he is right there, snuggling up, enjoying the cuddles. He has been known to join an upset child in one of the hammocks!

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Sue Anderson

Level 3 child development
Certificate of Education
Food hygiene level 2
Safeguarding level 3

I have joined Sarah's team at Wyld Thyngz to support the other leaders.

I worked until retirement for the last 25 years teaching Emotional and Behavioural Disordered children at three Priory education facilities. The subjects I taught where land-based studies, horticulture and animal care. I also ran a work experience market stall where my students would sell produce grown on our allotment and willow crafts that they learned to make. Working across three school sites meant that I worked with a wide age range of youngsters from 5 to 19. Our horticulture groups won several awards from the Royal Horticultural Society as well as producing healthy vegetables that where used in the school kitchen and put into veg boxes to be sold. 

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Cheryl Varley

Childcare Level 3
Food hygiene Level 2
Safeguarding Level 3