The Team

Meet Katie

Founder & Director

After more than fifteen years as a primary school teacher, I found myself asking a simple question:

Are we giving children what they truly need to thrive?

Long before Katie trained as a Forest School Leader, nature had already shaped the way she understood childhood.

When her children were young, Katie moved to West Dorset to raise them on the edge of the woods, within walking distance of the Jurassic Coast.

She learnt there that the woods were more than trees. They had become a second parent to her wild and spirited children.

They would venture off for hours, her eldest son at the helm. His two younger sisters followed, carrying supplies. Hours would pass. Not an adult in sight.

Dens built, imaginary worlds entered, problems solved, whatever the weather. Elderberry fritters, blackberry pancakes and the magic of puffball mushrooms, all foraged and devoured.

Without realising it at the time, a deep relationship with the changing seasons and their gifts was being sown. Looking back, Katie believes this relationship with the natural world became one of the greatest gifts she could have given her children.

Alongside raising her family, Katie spent over fifteen years teaching in primary schools. She loved helping children discover what lit them up and creating opportunities for curiosity, creativity and belonging. Over time, however, she became tired. Tired of a system she felt wasn't always meeting the needs of the children it served.

Covid hit. She stepped out of the classroom and back into the woods. Remembering, and for the first time consciously acknowledging, the woods as her teacher. It was then she made a deal: to co-teach with the trees. Just as she had quietly co-parented with the woods of West Dorset while raising her three children.

Today, through Wild Trout Foundation, Katie brings together her experience in education, Forest School and nature connection to create opportunities for children, families, schools and communities to reconnect—with themselves, one another and the natural world.