Field Notes: Quinag Junior Rangers add first aid to their skill set

Quinag conservation officer Kat Martin reports on the Junior Rangers’ latest achievements.

The most recent two sessions of the Junior Ranger programme saw our participants gaining their One Day Emergency First Aid at Work qualification with BASP qualified instructor Chris Di Rollo. They learned skills including resuscitation, recovery position, how to check a causality for injuries, and bandaging.

The 12 S3s from Ullapool High School are now half-way through the John Muir Trust-led Quinag Junior Ranger programme, which spans the academic year and aims to equip young people with practical skills for employment focusing on environmental work within the context of their local area. Alongside First Aid, they have learned navigation and orienteering skills; brash-hedge building; and woodland and deer ecology and management. Their final sessions will cover geology, exploration and crofting; culminating in a walk up Quinag where – weather-allowing – they will be presented with their Junior Ranger and John Muir Award certificates.

It has been incredibly fulfilling to support the Junior Rangers as they gain skills and knowledge connected to their home area. It was brilliant seeing how much they had learnt during role-play scenarios outdoors at the end of the First Aid course.

The following example from deputy head teacher Jo Stewart demonstrates that the community is in safe hands. “We were out on a field trip recently, and I slipped on some rocks," said Jo. "Pupils on the Junior Ranger programme, having completed their first aid at work training, came straight to my aid.

"It’s a fantastic programme that offers a hands-on approach to learning and includes sustainability, interdisciplinary and outdoor learning, whilst also developing skills for learning, life and work.”