Partner Spotlight: Urbanwise

 Urbanwise London is an educational charity which was established in 1983 and was previously known as Hammersmith and Fulham Urban Studies Centre.

We have a wealth of experience in engaging people in learning about their local environment and offer a range of different programmes to schools and adult groups.

 Urbanwise have extensive experience working with schools and young people. We offer some support and intervention programmes through connecting children to nature and their outdoor environment. This could be by using their school garden or a local outdoor green space.

Our activities are designed to help children with aspects of developing self-confidence, building team working skills, collaboration and achieving success with their own targets and goals.

One of our most recent projects was with a group of Y3 children, where we took charge of their small ‘courtyard style’ garden. We worked with 6 children, all had differing needs and sometimes this impacted on the dynamics of the group. Urbanwise worked very closely with the link worker to identify how the group would be best organised and managed. It was decided that we would split the group in two and separate some of the children who perhaps did not work together successfully.

We decided that the work together should have a defined ending and a goal for the children to work towards as a whole group. This took the shape of a garden tour for the rest of the class, with each child in the group taking a small area of the garden and making a short presentation.

Child ‘M’ is an 8-year-old girl who presents as very quiet, nervous and shy. Initially she rarely spoke and it was then only a minimal response to direct questions. We started each week with a hello and a well-being check in, which was at times a little challenging as she displayed mild anxiety and discomfort, but she always managed a response and smiled back. The end goal of the project was to organise a short tour of the garden space for the rest of the class, where each child in the AllChild group would give a brief presentation about a particular plant or area of the garden they had enjoyed looking after. The children prepared a short paragraph to present. With support and encouragement, child ‘M’ was able to make two very nice presentations with good eye contact and increased confidence. She was visibly very pleased with her effort.

Urbanwise are always on the lookout for volunteers who are interested in working with children.

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