The Brae Riding School is a charity that is associated with the Riding for the Disabled. They are an independent charity. The Brae works with disabled children and adults ranging from 3-90. The Brae has only six members of staff and relies hugely on volunteers to run the school. There are over one hundred and fifty volunteers that work at The Brae.

Using horses can help disabled people in several different ways. The first is communication as it teaches them new phrases and words that when said will get a reaction from the horse or even just communicating with the volunteers. The second is that it might be the only time that the child or adult is ever taller than everyone else. This alone is a new experience for the riders. Being on a horse is can also improve the posture of a person and how they hold themselves as well as work on concentrating as they need to concentrate to control the horse. Lastly, since the riders enjoy horse riding so much they do not realise that they are putting their body through physiotherapy. The physiotherapist at The Brae also does some one-to-one Hippo therapy (physiotherapy on horseback) lessons. The Brae was the first riding school in Scotland to offer this kind of therapy.

In this placement I will have the same role as all of the other volunteers which includes a multitude of tasks. These tasks include mucking out, grooming, feeding and any other care needed to look after the horses. As well as the care of the horses I will also be taking part in the riding lessons with adults and children. At first I will be working with a buddy to help train me on how to lead a horse and how to side support a rider. After my training time I will be doing these activities on my own. As my placement continues I may be given other tasks as well.

I chose to complete my Learning from Life placement here for many reasons. The first reason was that I have always enjoyed working with horses and animal in general. I had horse riding lessons when I was a child and I always wanted to learn more about horses and work more with them. The second reason was the I wanted to see the work that RDA did and how the horses help disabled people. A friend of my gran was disabled and my gran would take her to the Riding for the Disabled so I wanted to see the work that this fantastic organisation did. Lastly, I did not have any experience of working with disabled children and adults and I wanted to gain some.