Sue has worked at Derwent Hill for almost 8 years and holds a wide range of outdoor qualifications, including The Mountain Instructor Award. She has a BA (Hons) in Sport, Health & Physical Education from Bangor University.
Sue began her working career in 1997 as a trainee Instructor at Howtown Outdoor Education Centre. She then went on to work for Dundee City Council for 6 years. She is proud of the contributions she made whilst working with disengaged young people and delivering Outdoor programmes to members of the public. Sue also acted as advisor for The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and established a highly successful and ongoing women’s only group. More recently, she has worked in Norway with groups of young people, canoeing and trekking through the Stetesdal Mountains.
To enhance her practice, Sue has been studying part-time since September 2015 and has almost completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Outdoor Education at Moray House, University of Edinburgh. She takes her inspiration from the educationalist and environmentalist Patrick Geddes and his philosophy ‘Learning by doing’ (hand, heart, head). Effective learning requires the individual to be both physically and emotionally engaged, experiencing both success and failure in order to learn about and develop themselves. Geddes also wrote “By Leaves we live” which for Sue cements the reliance of nature on human existence.
Sue finds her inspiration in the mountains where she will be found climbing or riding her mountain bike. She has followed her passions throughout the UK, Europe, Scandinavia, Africa and America, and this year fulfilled a dream to climb on the granite in the Lofoton Islands, Norway. Sue has ‘enjoyed’ various mountain bike endurance events, winning the infamous Strathpuffer 24. She is also a secret Munroe bagger having less than 80 of the 282 left to summit!
Read more about her in Sue’s Blog.
