What exactly have I been doing for two years at Treeschool?
The time has flown and my time as a student at treeschool draws to an end...
My posts have been thin on the ground for the last few months because the last few months at treeschool have been very intense. March was the exam period and after that we launched right into the last four units which had with them “a lot” (sixteen bits to be precise) of course work. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but when you add in the complexities of being a fully functional adult with a part time job, a full time course, a woodland to manage, starting a tree company as well as maintaining a YouTube channel (so much back log of content) and a substack then you can begin to understand why I’ve been silent for a few months.
And a LOT has happened in a few months. Some of it you know about, but most of it you don’t. However, I’m saving most of the unknown stuff for some later posts whilst I play catch up on what’s been going on. All I wanted to do with this post is start closing in on the end of being a student at treeschool.
Two years ago, it was all a dream. The idea of moving my income from technology to arboriculture & forestry was laughable. Now, it’s reality. I have the dregs of one assignment left to complete, but after that all of the theory work and all the units are done and my time as a student at treeschool draws to a close.
Tickets
So here’s a brief recap on the tickets I’ve managed to get in two years at tree school.
NPTC Chainsaw crosscutting and maintenance
NPTC Felling and processing small trees (up to 380mm diameter)
NPTC Felling and processing medium trees (380 - 760mm diameter)
NPTC Processing individual windblow trees
NPTC Tree climbing and aerial rescue
NPTC Operation and safe use of a mobile elevated working platform (MEWP)
NPTC Using a chainsaw from a rope and harness
NPTC Using a chainsaw from a MEWP
NPTC Operation and safe use of hand fed wood chipper
NPTC Basic tractor skills
There are still two tickets I’m working towards (rigging and dismantling, aerial pruning) but they’re more advanced tickets and whilst I probably could fudge my way through them today, I’ve want a little more skill development as a tree climber before I go and do those. I’ll get them, but I imagine it’ll be 2025 when I do those tickets. However, with the ten tickets I already have, I am now able to get all the insurances I need in order to run a small tree business. More on that in another post though because there’s news on that front.
The tickets are “bolt-ons” and they’re served as additional extras. The actual course I’ve been studying at treeschool is a City & Guilds “Level 3 Advanced Technical Diploma in Arboriculture and Forestry”, but everyone calls it “level 3 arb” which gets abbreviated to L3 arb. Whilst it is a little bit about forestry, at treeschool it is skewed heavily towards arboriculture (arb) because that’s where the work is at in the North East of England.
L3 Arb Course Content
But let’s break down the L3 arb course a little bit because over the two years it covers a lot of ground. It took two full time years to cover everything. Each of the below paragraphs is a ‘unit’ and they’re not in chronological order. They’re actually ordered by their module numbers.
301 - Principles of health and Safety. A tour of relevant legislation working upwards from the Health & Safety Act 1974 and understanding how to implement safe working practices. Kind of important given the context. Risk assessment process of "site, task, machine” is introduced and connected with first aid and manual handling principles. Wraps up with the five types of fire extinguishers and their use. This was one of the first things in first year for obvious reasons.
302 - Undertake and review work related experience in the land based industries. I wrote about this one back in September of 2023. It’s a great unit because you get paid, but also because you learn how to put your skills into place against a “commercial reality” whilst being in people’s personal space. It can be quite emotional, which I didn’t expect. Also, you work a wide range of locations…
Land based machines. This unit is outstanding especially if you started it with little understanding of how two stroke and four stroke engines work. Two stroke engines blew my mind and as a result big diesel and petrol engines (four stroke) are now less of a mystery. This was a first year course and we were really just aimed at saws and woodchippers. The stuff that prepares you for work experience in between first year and second year. Chippers are scary things at first, then you get really comfortable with them. This is a dangerous mindset. You should always view them as the meat pulverising machines they are. Some have tracks, some have wheels. Some are towed, some are trailed. Some are fed with in-feed rollers and some are gravity fed. Some have built in stress systems and in some, you are the stress system. Here’s a tracked chipper below. It’s a bit of a niche machine, but it does the job. This was a great unit for getting you ready for tree world.
Plant & Soil Science. Trees live outside, and that means soil. There is essentially no such things as trees in the sense of species or as a noun. I think it is better to view “tree” as a verb (I’ll write about this at some point). Suffice to say plant science and soil science covers the basics of plant structures (different cells, different parts) and how each part contributes to a plants metabolic system (essentially the same as a humans with a different input output - carbon dioxide in, oxygen out). Soil as a concept is opened up so that you can see the how variety of life, organic matter, nutrients and composition of sand, clay and silt affect what grows in soil.
Estate skills. Fences, paths, rides, structures. Most people I think saw this module as a bit pointless but there was an edge to it in that you’ll make more money doing fences than you would doing trees. We used the module to plant and fence up a rather nice series of heavy standards (simply put - big trees in pots). Personally, in the woodland I do a lot of this kind of work which is why I got so much enjoyment from it.
Specialist project. This project is anything you want it to be. The thing you get marked on is your ability to write proposals, plans, record progress as you do it and then review the project once it is completed. I chose to make a QGIS map of my woodland, the sub-compartments and the tree stock.
Principles of tree felling and chainsaw use. This is one area of the course that is weird. Essentially it combines two NPTC tickets into one module. However, employers typically don’t recognise the module and prefer you to have the tickets. I suspect this is because they’ve poorly interpreted their insurance policies. By the end of this module you really, really know how to maintain a chainsaw and fell a tree. Unlike the ticket versions of this, you have to talk the assessor through everything and you cannot miss a single thing out. On the tickets, you can be prompted if you miss a thing. Not here. If you miss a thing, you fail the thing. This is the weird. It is harder than the corresponding tickets, but not recognised as a qualification.
Tree ID, planting and aftercare of plants for forestry and arb. This one we split up and did ID in year one and the planting and aftercare in year two. The rationale is fairly sound for doing this because the sooner your ID skills are developing the better. In fact, one game I like to play as I drive about is to ID the trees at the side of the road. For the ID we concentrated on the british natives (33 broadleaves and 3 conifers) as well as some of more popular non-natives such as norway maple, decorative cherries, a range of firs, pines, spruces and some of the more rarer and endangered examples on Houghall such as Metasequoia glyptostroboides. The planting side of things was also interesting and it was fascinating to see how forestry planting differed from arboricultural planting. Foresty is a case of 700+ trees a day. It’s very fast paced and a case of take two large steps, make hole with a spit, shove the tree in the hole, heel it in from all sides, give it a tug and make sure deers cannot rip it out. Take two steps… Arb was more a case of 6 trees an hour. Remove the grass, dig a hole for the tree, hammer in the stake, plant the tree, heel it in from all sides, apply a mulch mat over the tree and around the stake, pin the mat down, cover the tree with a tube, tie the tube to the stake, add some mulch. Take two steps…
Principles and identification of pests, diseases and disorders of trees. An important unit, especially for climbers. Knowing how to spot structural defects before you get into the tree is a key element of avoiding injury or harm to others. We covered the obvious things like fungi, bacteria and other diseases, but also looked at some not so well known problems. Road salt, mechanical damage from machinery, damage from vandalism etc. The unit left us with a comprehensive understanding of abiotic (not-living) and biotic (living) pathogens and how to identify, monitor and control / ameliorate those that can be. There’s a lot of fungi work in here and my prior experience in growing mushrooms (not that kind, the eating kind) came in very, very handy. A nice unit that also intersected nicely with bush craft and foraging, but I have to be clear - foraging was strictly forbidden at treeschool. I’m making that connection purely off my own back.
Urban & community forestry projects. This was a second year module and taught to us by a new teacher who happens to be an epic climber. If you have a group of trees around you in an urban environment, it’s an urban forest. So we did a lot of walking in this module exploring all the urban forests around treeschool. It’s a totally different kettle of fish managing urban forests when compared to woodland forests. It’s a very public process in which consultation and listening to stakeholders is as important to the survival and health of the trees as species selection and location. This module could easily become a course all on its own and is a topic close to my heart. At the back of my house is an urban forest, a rather large one totalling three hectares (9 acres). It’s beautiful, but it has a dark side. At night, the youth like to set the place on fire, during the day it’s a haunt for local drunks and arseholes on motorbikes. But that’s another story for another day and one all too familiar to any one in an urban forestry setting.
Woodland habitat management. Woodlands are fascinating places full of history and life (and drunks, and arsonists and motorbikes). Understanding the history of how woodlands came to be and how their interactions with local communities and economies shaped species development is fascinating. In short, a woodland that pays is a woodland that stays. A nice pithy quote for sure, but woodlands are complex where a subtle shift over here can impact a lot over there and vice versa. This is another unit that could have easily been a full course in itself. It’s certainly shifted my approach in treedom woods.
Principles of tree science. Whilst trees are certainly plants, they certainly do something special when they “tree”. There’s a lot to it from basics such as how access to water, light and nutrients shapes and affects tree growth, through to how biomechanics can influence the posture of a tree. It’s an important unit for arborists because we also took a reasonably deep look into wound response and how to properly wound (prune) a tree to stack the deck in the favour of achieving a certain outcome. In places where wounds failed to heal, we looked at decay and the types of decay. This was paired up with pests and diseases and considered against fungal colonisation strategies. A mature bonsai would have been a fantastic resource but we didn’t have one. Bonsai being another topic for another day. Biomechanics and the resulting timber it produces, is a topic I’m very interested in. On numerous occasions I’ve tried to write about it but never published it, so here’s a few images from an unpublished post from last year.
Tree & shrub pruning and maintenance. This module introduced us to CODIT and I wrote about it when I was doing the module. There’s a British standard for pruning trees called BS3998. It’s supposed to cost about £250~ to buy, but is is the kind of document that councils leave lying around on intranets with public access. What you’re actually paying for is a license to own a copy so if you download it and you don’t have a license, that’s on you. These documents are like software in that sense. However, it is nice to know there is a standard so that when you are doing work that is either commercial, for a local council, or on a tree with a tree protection order (TPO) you know exactly what is expected of you. However, in domestic arb world, all of it goes out the window. You do what the customer wants. You can spend your life telling them what you know, but at the end of the day, that tree is getting topped and that branch is getting cut right on the boundary and not at a suitable pruning point. Of course, this is not the modules fault and it is a fine module.
Emergency tree works. This is one of the units that I’ve been busy with recently. It’s hung off an emergency scenario1 and you have to complete four tasks. First, is list of procedures to follow. Second is a written piece on hazards and considerations to the scenario and dealing with windblown trees. Third is a risk assessment and method statement. When working, these are the kinds of documents you need to submit alongside bids when trying to win the larger juicy work and contracts. They are big documents and this one took me ages. Finally, as a separate presentation, you had to consider the legislation and case law that would affect the operations and how you’d handle that. You know how I like to draw things, so I made a nice drawing of it which is below. I was lucky here because I love doing windthrow stuff and it’s not a stranger to me. See sketchy birch over a path and a birch on a birch on an oak in an oak.
Operate, maintain and understand the principles of specialist forestry and arboricultural machinery. This unit built upon the first year land based machinery unit. After having my mind blown by two stroke engines the year before, this year my mind was blown by being shown how braking systems on trailers worked. We used some cool machines like tracked chippers, tractors, mini skid steers and massive stump grinders. Below are some little videos. The first is of the stump grinder that swallowed stumps and the second was of the mini-loader. The cool thing about mini-loader day was the obstacle course that was built that we had to manoeuvre the machine around and do certain tasks on. There was also a lot of paperwork for this unit from risk assessments to presentations. But there was a LOT of hands on troubleshooting and fixing in preparation for the real world.
Support arboricultural operations from the ground. This was another one of those weird units that actually covers multiple tickets. If you weren’t paying attention in practical you may have not noticed you were actually doing this unit. It was one of the first things we did in first year. We climbed a lot in first year, and every day started off with risk assessment and a discussion of legislation as well as how to set the work site up and introduced the concept of work zones and exclusion zones. As we developed our climbing skills we started practicing aerial rescues so that if a climber became stuck, we could rescue them. Every week was a progression of the previous. We learned about inspecting gear before use as well as performing a visual tree assessment before we climbed. It built on knowledge from the pests and diseases unit as well as principles of plant science. It was also an eye opening experience into the damage that grey squirrels (and just greys by the way) do to branches and limbs of trees. They do it in such a way so that you cannot see it from the ground. I think I’ve shared this one before, but below is a good all round image of me up a tree, next to squirrel damage.
Arboricultural skills and Advanced arboricultural practices (two units over two years). These units were largely the basis for practical. They ran first year to second year and if you weren’t paying attention, they would have morphed into one another. The advanced second year module was one of the highlights as I got used to knocking the tops out of trees. Ultimately it is what lead to me doing (but not completing) the biggun. By this time we were able to climb on a basic two rope system (two ropes, two prussic loops) but we’d each started developing our own preferred systems. I’m leaning more towards less impactful ways of accessing a tree (the days of speedy youthful recovery are behind me) such as getting a line in high using a throwline and climbing on a zig zag and a foot ascender. We got used to using cambium savers, redirecting ropes and understanding how to minimise (if not eliminate) any harm to a tree when climbing it. We learned how to do aerial inspections, which is an avenue I am very keen to continue down along with bat surveys and other ecology related shenanigans. But best of all we got used to doing pruning whilst up a tree, using ropes for dismantling and taking apart small and medium trees. If there’s one module that people think of when they think of a treeschool, it’s this one. There is nothing quite like that feeling when you’ve knocked the top out and you’re being ragged about (just the right amount) at the top of the what was a tree, but is now a pole.
Tree surveys and inspections. Some of my classmates at treeschool have tried the arb world and prefer to make their money (and more of it) in an environment with less poo and where they are not facing risks each and every day. This is the unit that they thrived on. Truth be told, it’s also a unit that I really enjoyed. I cannot physically climb and cut five days a week, every week, as a long term strategy. If I was twenty, maybe I could do fifteen to twenty years of it, but eventually it’ll catch up with you. So I paid attention in this module. My background in design helps a lot with this stuff, as does the tech background. It makes layout and fancy pants presentation something I’ve already invested in and so, I can make stuff look nice and in alignment with a brand. If you’re interested you can see my report here. The tech world has made database systems and coding and geographic information systems very familiar, so doing inspections and surveys and reports is something I find very appealing as I have certain skills other people may not. Being older when you get into arb has many benefits. But the coolest thing about tree surveys and inspections is that they’re another string on the bow of a one man band. And that’s 100% another story for another day.
Wrapping up.
Most qualified, least experienced.
Probably the main thing I’ve learned over the last few years is that qualifications are mostly pointless unless you do stuff with them. I joke about being the most qualified and least experienced person on a crew, and whilst it is funny, I don’t like that it is true - although increasingly less so. This is why I’ve been working hard at the estate, the woodland and when doing domestic work at treecompany. Theory is nearly useless without direct practice and both theory and practice require repetition and time. You could say if learning is a tree then theory may be the cellulose, experience may be the lignin. The leaves of your knowledge grow on this tree. Practice is the sun that allows it all to photosynthesise and feed itself so that it grows big and strong.
Fun.
I’ve covered a lot of ground in this post and the last few years, but really at the end of the day, it all boils down to tree work being a massive amount of fun. So to close out, below is a photo of the largest tree I’ve felled so far. It was an old sycamore that was in danger of collapsing onto a three hundred year old farm house on the estate. Needless to say it had to be dealt with. It measured about forty inches. My thirty six inch bar wasn’t big enough. The tree was sycamore and the actual resulting saw log was very nice. No rot and nice and clean, so that’ll be headed to the mill. Hopefully I’ll get to mill it up in soon.
Ok, closing this out – there’s much more to share about developments in my life of treedom over the last four months but most of it is another story for another day. Now that I’m nearly finished being a student at treeschool, the production of content for the web rather than assessors will once again resume to a reasonable level. There’s lots of content to produce and for good reason… Whilst I’m nearly finished being a full-time student at treeschool, I’m not quite done with the place. You see, I’ve accepted a part-time lecturer position in trees and woodland management at treeschool.. I’ll explain later but suffice to say, I plan on putting the teaching materials I prepare in my own time to good use as content for you all here.
Thanks for reading and I appreciate your attention.
Cheers,
Jamie
Scenario: a wind-thrown Beech tree is hung up in an adjacent tree over a public footpath in the woodland playground next to a stream. The tree is hanging over a live high voltage (HV) powerline and within falling distance of a busy road.
Congratulations with finishing treeschool -- and with snagging a teaching job there!
It's interesting to read about all the subjects you have to cover; it's an impressively serious education.
Didn't know grey squirrels were such destructive little arseh*les!
Looking forward to the next steps of treedom :-)