Student of the Year award for graduate with a passion for forest schools
24th October 2022 – Tags: Degrees and Higher Education
Asa Hardy-Brownlie was named Student of the Year at Saturday’s City College Norwich and Easton College graduation.
Asa graduated with First Class Honours from the BA (Hons) Childhood and Youth Studies course.
In addition to achieving very high grades for every module of the course, Asa’s dissertation was awarded one of the highest grades ever awarded in the Childhood area.
Asa is passionate about the value of learning through forest schools. He has a wide experience of teaching children in a forest school environment, expertise he has shared more widely through the Forest School Folk YouTube channel - a joint initiative with fellow forest school teacher Ian Sippitt.
Asa’s lecturers at City College Norwich describe him as someone who 'shows humility in his achievements and is consistently striving to do even better’, and ‘a true deep thinker’, whom it has been ‘a pleasure to teach.’
Reflecting on his journey on the Childhood and Youth Studies degree, Asa says:
After my A-Levels, I spent 6 years exploring various opportunities and jobs before finding myself in special needs education and Forest Schools. I realised a degree would not only improve my knowledge and practice, but also my earning potential and progression opportunities.
Of all the options available to me, I was drawn to a course that provided a holistic overview of childhood in its entirety. I also wanted to remain in Norwich so City College Norwich quickly became the obvious choice, although I was hesitant with it not being a ‘major’ university. I needn’t have been.
The course content and lecturers were outstanding, and the small staff to student ratio made me feel valued and supported. I absolutely thrived on this course and was able to produce some outstanding work across the subject area and explore topics I had never previously considered. I graduate more enthused and passionate about childhood than ever.”