Education in Carding Mill Valley

The Learning Team at CMV has created a “Guardianship” link with both the Primary and Secondary schools in Church Stretton. This means that over the past year we have offered a variety of services to the teachers and students of both schools so that they can all feel that hey have an ownership of The Long Mynd and Wenlock Edge as well as a responsibility in looking after the properties because they have learned so much about them and hopefully begun to love and care for them.

The range of activities that have been conducted and supported by our great team of volunteers has include geology work - whereby students have studied and compared the rocks of both sites in great detail (Long Mynd being pre Cambrian and Wenlock Edge being Silurian limestone with lots of interesting fossils to hunt for). River Studies were conducted by students from both schools (whereby measurements were taken at various sites to compare how the stream changes along its course – involves getting wet!!). Some students conducted biological studies by fishing for small invertebrates in the stream and then using microscopes in our field labs to get to grips with what lives there and why. Some of the older students have come both in summer and winter to do a bit of orienteering, chasing around the valley in small teams to search for markers that will help them not just with map reading skills but get them to know their way around and experience the ambience of the valley. Perhaps one of the most successful ventures was during the schools “activities week” when the year 8’s were led on to the top of the hill via a route none of them had previously experienced. After a very steep uphill climb the expressions of awe and appreciation of the beauty were witness to a memory that many will not forget for many years,