Compton Verney 2021
Woodland Tribe are revolutionising playtime in the UK. Commissioned by Shambala in 2014 Woodland Tribe’s reputation and popularity has grown year-on-year. We support existing adventure playgrounds, protecting valuable spaces that matter, as well as co-creating new play spaces in schools, communities and exciting play experiences at festivals. Woodland Tribe provide a broad mix of empowering ideas, community engagement, event management, collective wisdom and strategic knowledge.
Woodland Tribe’s mission is to make adventure play
a popular culture all over the UK.
Feeding an inherent need for children and families to take control of community space, to play and build together.
PLAY BUILD DREAM
Woodland Tribe’s play-build philosophy is all about letting children take control of their own play space.
It is hard to describe the sight and sound of 50+ children, equipped with hammers and saws clambering over and furiously adding to a huge structure that they themselves have built.
The resulting aesthetic is rickety, shonky and full of dynamism, and clearly built by children to please no-one else but themselves.
We actively encourage children to make their own risk assessments, and decisions about how the structures should develop, and passionately believe that not wrapping children in cotton wool leads to huge personal benefit.
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A CHILDHOOD IN THE HERE AND NOW
Woodland Tribe offer an exciting ‘we can do it’ narrative of children’s play that celebrates children’s agency in the here and now. Feedback tells us families put a value on participation, making something together is a rare opportunity for co-production.
A blank canvas means everyone can contribute, to have norms and rules playfully disrupted, for adults to revisit moments of their own childhood.
Children tell us that being allowed to build fosters an incredible relationship between them and the space. A complex assemblage of hands on construction and imaginative play, where the experience and resulting attachment to the space is amplified for every child and adult taking part.
ORGANISATION AND DIRECTORS
Woodland Tribe is run by 5 directors and an experienced collective of creatives including; artists, playworkers, film makers, teachers, carpenters and social workers. Woodland Tribe’s creator and founder Tom Williams has been at the forefront of the adventure playground movement for over 30 years as a playworker, local authority officer, academic and event organiser.
