About Us

Hi! I’m Ellie and I am passionate about getting children outside and learning in nature.

Back to the Beginning….

I am a qualified primary school teacher, and taught in a school for children with significant additional learning needs for 12 years.

In 2014 my husband and I bought a derelict smallholding in West Wales. We began to build our house and slowly beat back the bramble forests.

In 2015 I completed my Forest School Leader training and this was a turning point for me!! It awakened many memories from my own childhood adventures, and started me down the path to getting children outdoors.

Our first son was born in 2016 and I enjoyed a maternity leave taking him outdoors as much as possible in his baby carrier, sling or pushchair before returning to teach and becoming the primary lead for Forest School in the school.

We finally moved to our smallholding in 2017, with one small child and expecting number two, did a multitude of work on the site and around the holding, which you can follow over on my other blog Tyddyn Bryn.

Our second son was born in early 2018 and I had two small people to run around in the outdoors with, one in a sling and the first who needed to run at full tilt everywhere!

The Birth of Traed Bach Mwdlyd…

In November 2018 Traed Bach Mwdlyd started as a small, baby and toddler forest school session once a week on the smallholding, when number two was a baby, but number one was becoming an extremely active and outdoorsy toddler.

Since then I have run sessions in a variety of local child care settings. Supporting these settings in delivering specialist sessions in outdoor learning.

I run my own sessions here on the smallholding and now on the Beach.

I have also taken up a position as the Lead Facilitator for Coed Cariad Learning Community, a nature based self directed learning community based near Carmarthen. So for two days a week I run and do the day to day administration for a CIW registered child care setting.

In 2020 I completed my Coastal School Training, Outdoor Curriculum Coordinator training.

2021 saw me complete my Outdoor Curriculum Coordinator course and 2022 my Level 3 CCPLD, with plans to complete a couple more qualifications in the outdoors fields before too long!

As part of all this Ellie keeps an up to date certificate in Safeguarding, an up to date First in the Outdoors qualification and Food Hygiene certification.

She is up to date with all policy and procedure developments especially in relation to more recent times with the global pandemic.