Coppicewood College Courses
There are two types of course offered by Coppicewood College.
Woodland Skills 6 month course starting October 2008.
Enquire now for 1st October 2008
places still available!
places still available!
Applications welcome now 4 day and 1 day courses starting in October 2008.
Please contact us if you'd like some more information on any of our courses.
Congratulations to Alice in being accepted on a work placement with the Sheffield Wildlife Trust as a Trainee Ranger. Alice has told us that the fact she had taken our 6 month woodland skills course played a major part in the criteria for her succesfull application. We wish Alice evcery success in her placement and her future woodland career.
Congratulations also to Martin our other student on the 2006/07 course as Martin has successfully applied to the college as an Instructor on the 2007/08 course.
What do our students think !
First term: A perspective from Alice, who was one our first students to complete the 6 month course for season 06/07.
"I have found it deeply satisfying and rewarding to be able to work with hand tools and learn the traditional methods of coppicing and green woodwork, skills that have been handed down through generations and are quickly disappearing. Whenever I tell people I am doing a coppicing course, the usual reaction is… “What is that?” to me this shows the general lack of public knowledge on coppicing and is an even greater reason to do coppicing and educate people about its benefits.
This term I have been getting to grips with using a wide range of hand tools. I thought I could use an axe before I came on the course… I couldn’t! I have been using bill hooks, bow saws, axes and 5ft singing saws (!) to manage an acre coppice plot with other people on the course and volunteers. I have learnt how to process the wood, snedding and sorting into piles for faggot making and potential craft items. I have progressed greatly during the term in my competence to use tools, to care for them and to make and asses decisions on woodland management. By the end of this term, myself and Martin (a fellow student) felled a large tree using axes, a task I wouldn’t have thought I’d be capable of at the beginning of the course.
Along with learning how to manage the woodlands, I have been learning some green woodworking skills. I have learned basic techniques to process wood such as cleaving, splitting, using a shave horse and making joints. This next term I will be putting these skills to use to complete a personal craft project.
I have also been on a couple of field trips to visit local areas that also coppice. It’s been really insightful to see how other areas are managed and for what reasons, whether it be for biodiversity, for firewood or for crafts."