Patrick Harrision - Profile
Since childhood he has always been inspired and motivated by the big outdoors, and when all else fails, finds a long hill walk is the perfect antidote to most ills.
Through his personal struggles as a child bewildered by schooling, he has developed a passion for alternative learning processes. For many years he has recognised the vitally important role of creativity in education, as a tool to develop flexibility in thinking, confidence and self esteem.
Due to his own experience and the witnessing of others, he has also developed a thorough understanding of the impact of doing, playing and deep learning on all areas of development as a catalyst for fundamental and lasting change.
He lives in the Welsh border country where he has spent some fifteen years working creatively in many outdoor settings. His background is in creative expression, through professional painting, graphic design and environmental arts. He taught reflexive art classes for many years, and drumming and rhythm in schools and with adults with special needs. This has given him a grounding in awareness of how the body offers a memory of its own, independent of cognitive processes, and the reality of collective intelligence, fundamentally linked to deep learning.
Patrick has also used the building of structures in the outdoors, primarily Celtic roundhouses, as an inspirational platform for education and holistic development. It was through this experience, initially, that he found out about Forest Schools, and subsequently trained as a Forest Schools level 3 practitioner.
For many years he developed Montgomeryshire Forest School, locating and developing several sites in the area, which some fifty local schools have benefitted from. The projects also involved a number of local communities, Millenium Volunteers and Youth Offender teams. He aims to sustain his involvement with MFS where possible, to give support, and to maintain his practice at ground level, delivering Forest School sessions in his local, much loved, community.
Patrick’s passion for, and comprehension of, the learning potential of the Forest School environment, naturally drew him towards the opportunity to be a part of Archimedes, and the unique level of understanding it instils in it’s training programmes.