I’ve found it!

I just have to say; it’s good to be back…

Thing is, due to trying to change the blog name from SW School of Herbal Medicine to just The School of Herbal Medicine, [and some technical incompetence] I lost the blog and couldn’t find it for several months. Now I have found it again I am just going to leave the name as it is and stop trying to fiddle with it.

So much has happened, and most of it I have briefly described on Facebook – but FB is not a platform that you can really get into your subject, and some people don’t have it.

We had a fantastic weekend with the legendary Joe Nasr of Avicenna Herbs to end our residential Easter School in March. He was informative, inspiring and generous in his sharing of knowledge and tips.

We have three new members of staff joining Susan, Maggie and Christina Stapley: two botany teachers, [Ann Fells and Jill Eastwood] and a retired doctor [Richard Savage] who will take over teaching Anatomy & Physiology for Year 3 as Susan moves on to teach her great loves Immunology & Medical Microbiology.

Botanist Ann Fells – pics of Jill and Richard to follow shortly…

We have moved premises! The school is no longer based at New Place in Porlock. This is mainly because Susan herself has moved to Selworthy [ into one of those lovely National Trust picturesque cottages on Selworthy Green] and we will be hiring training rooms available from the National Trust to run some of our seminars. One of which is Piles Mill Study Centre on the Holnicote Estate just over the road from Selworthy Green – a lovely little facility.

Piles Mill Study Centre

We were asked to give a talk about the school to a group gathered for an open day at Elder Farm, run by fellow herbalist Helen Kearney. Maggie spoke about how and why the school came into being – mostly as we saw degree courses being shut down across the country even though there was an obvious interest from people who wanted to study the subject. We wanted a degree-level course, but not one that was under the control and mercy of the whims of the government. The most obvious option was to start one ourselves; steered and guided with the academic acumen of a DPhil from Oxford [Susan]. The school is after quality rather than quantity and our seminars are more like public school tutorials. We want our students to spend time learning the material, not to race through ‘a course’ in 3 years and get a piece of paper saying they have passed the relevant number of exams to qualify as a medical herbalist.

Susan spoke about how education works, mostly about consolidation and reflection, and the value of face to face seminars. Her passion is to train the students to be very, very good at physical examination skills so that they can be equipped to diagnose illness and disease even better than the local GP – whose may be used to the ease of sending patients off for tests.

We are now in examination season and we wish all of our students in Year 1 and 2 all the success which they deserve.