Share

Work experience with Dorset Wildlife Trust

Year 12 student, James Carter recently chose to do a week of work experience with us and kindly agreed to describe his experience in this blog post. From helping with conservation tasks on Higher Hyde Heath to reviewing the website, he certainly seems to have gained an excellent insight into the work we do.

I’m James, a Year 12 student and currently studying for A-Levels. When my school gave us the opportunity to do work experience for a week, I jumped at the chance to gain some skills, insight and experience in my main area of interest: conservation. I chose to do this with the Dorset Wildlife Trust to build on my time volunteering with the RSPB last summer, where I helped with practical management of their Arne reserve, giving me experience in a wider range of activities and organisations, which I think will also be great for my CV for getting into the sector in the future. Here's how my week went.

Day 1: On the first day of the placement, I helped to work on the Dorset Wildlife Trust website, in particular, reviewing the volunteering page and resources, such as the Volunteering for Young People leaflet which is a really good place for young people to get started when it comes to volunteering for the Dorset Wildlife Trust. I made some suggestions to improve these pages, which will hopefully provide some more detail to help inspire and make it easier for people to get involved.

Higher Hyde Heath

James Carter

Day 2: Today, I joined the South Dorset volunteers at Higher Hyde Heath, working to help improve public access to the site. Initially, we cut back overgrown brambles and bracken from the paths to widen them. In the afternoon, we started the creation of a new waymarked trail through the reserve. This involved digging out some of the old posts and reusing them elsewhere to signpost a better path through the area.

Day 3:  I spent the day with the Planning Officer learning about how Dorset Wildlife Trust gets involved and raises concerns about planning applications. I helped to review what ecological information the application included, such as bat surveys and ecological impact assessments, and whether these showed if the development may affect protected species. This process enables the Planning Officer to prioritise which applications to respond to.

Waymarker on Upton Heath

James Carter

Day 4: I joined the Urban Wildlife volunteers on Upton Heath today to do some more waymarking. We dug holes and put in new posts with arrows which direct you around a new circular trail through the nature reserve, as well as removing some of the old posts pointing in the wrong direction.

Day 5: Today, I was working with staff from the Urban Heaths Partnership. This is a partnership between 10 organisations, including Dorset Wildlife Trust, which helps conserve Dorset’s heathlands. I joined the seasonal wardens in visiting some of the heathland sites they monitor, such as Ferndown Common. We visited nearby Winfrith Heath, where we looked at the site of a fire which had unfortunately happened the weekend before.

I have really enjoyed my work experience. It was not only great fun and really interesting, but I have also gained valuable skills and experience. I'm hoping to study a conservation-related degree at university, and then to get a job in the conservation sector. I would encourage anybody to get involved with Dorset Wildlife Trust, whether through work experience like me or by giving volunteering a go to meet new people, learn new things and help protect Dorset’s wildlife.

Related blog posts