John Rhyder  
 
John has been studying the natural world since early childhood and being making his living in the countryside for well over twenty years. He has worked as an arborist, green woodworker, charcoal burner and hedgelayer and been heavily involved in conservation management. His teaching career began some sixteen years ago when he coupled his role as a woodsman with freelance instructing at FE colleges and study centres teaching arboriculture, conservation and natural history.

John’s knowledge and experience led to him being appointed as chief instructor for Woodlore, a company operated by Ray Mears, the noted bushcraft expert and presenter. Since then John and his School, which he started in 2001 with his partner Caron Buckingham, has been featured on local television, national and local newspapers and made many appearances on various local radio stations

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In 2003 John devised the bushcraft instructor programme in conjunction with Plumpton College. This is the first year long programme of its kind in the UK that allows the standard to be to be set and measured by national awarding bodies.

In 2005 John was commissioned by the Woodcraft Folk to devise a youth programme of bushcraft and natural history loosely based on the philosophy of Earnest Thompson Seaton, the great American naturalist, pioneer of outdoor education and the woodcraft movement.

Today John continues to pursue his joint interests of natural history and education. He currently sits on the curriculum advisory panel at Plumpton College and is always working on new ideas to bring bushcraft and natural history to as wide an audience as possible. When not actively teaching John still works as a consultant in conservation management..