Many years ago Alford Academy was gifted a Forestry Plot in Murray Park, to promote an interest in Forestry careers amongst the students of the time. The plot was planted up with a mixture of conifer species by the students. One of the staff of Aberdeenshire Council’s Roads and Landscape Services department, who still lives in Alford, remembered as a pupil removing birch trees and planting conifers.
In recent decades the plot has seen little use by the school, as the economics of forestry combined with the introduction of mechanisation has seen a reduction in the number of jobs in Forestry.
Several years ago it was decided to use the plot as part of an outdoor activity week that the Academy run each year, and a number of improvements have been made which were aimed at improving access and encouraging the use of the plot for Outdoor Learning activities. Under the guidance of Alford Academy teachers Clive and Maria Marsden, a series of annual mini-projects have been organised. The first task was to make the area safe as there were a large number of unstable trees. These had to be felled and at the same time, an area for ‘regeneration’ and an area for a ‘classroom’ was created. A path was created to allow access to the plot, and the clearing was created to make a useful gathering and teaching space amongst the trees.
This year, the school were given a small grant by the Forest Education Initiative to further develop the use of the resource. Unfortunately, the strong winds this winter meant that, as previously, the forest area had to be made safe as a number of large trees were ‘hanging’ on others. However, these formed the basis for the production of simple furniture. A cargo parachute was bought and due to the diligence and patience of one of the school technicians the hundreds of rips were repaired. This formed the ‘icing on the cake’ in terms of giving the classroom a canopy.
On May 31st and June 1st, students from the Academy took part in building an outdoor teaching space. Local forestry contractor, Ben Hudson of Treelogic, a former Alford Academy pupil, brought along a portable chainsaw mill (called an Alaskan Saw) to turn windblown spruce trees into useful planks which the students used to build benches and a plank wall. Doug. Gooday (FEI) came and taught fire-lighting and forest safety to small groups of students in turn whilst the rest dug holes, repaired paths and built furniture. There were different students on each of the two days. Wet and soggy on day one and warm and sunny on day two. The students had great fun being outdoors, doing something worthwhile and it provided some first-hand practical experience in using tools and team working.
