Our Tutors
Chris Smith:
Chris tutors on most of our workshops and programmes. Chris brings over 19 years of leadership experience in 16 – 19 FE Education. Chris is also a qualified counsellor. He is highly experienced in delivering and managing education for young people; from mentoring and pastoral care to course design, assessment and moderation. During his career as an educator, Chris has been highly active in bringing sustainability and environmental awareness into FE (and HE) arts curricula; it is partly these activities that led him to design and initiate the New Futures Academy.
Chris is passionate about helping young people achieve their potential and cares very much about helping young people navigate their way through the challenging transition into adulthood whilst preparing for their futures. He also believes that all education (and personal development) ultimately should be informed by a deep, embodied and caring relationship with the natural world. His work for The Academy is also motivated by his belief that education is on the frontline of where the paradigm shift to ecological consciousness needs to happen.
Jenna Blencowe
Jenna is a Nature Connection Facilitator and Eco-therapist. Jenna co-facilitates on the New Futures Forest Crafts Youth Group and also works in a similar capacity for WildWise Enterprises.
Jenna started her career as a teacher, gaining experience across both primary and secondary schools in London. She soon became more and more interested in the intersection between nature-connection and wellbeing, and so in 2016 took a step away from teaching full time to pursue training in Forest School (Level 3), Ecotherapy and Forest Bathing.
She spent three years working on a care farm where she delivered programmes for vulnerable young people, whilst also completing her masters in leadership in education, focussing specifically on leadership for wellbeing.
More recently Jenna has rekindled her love of campfire singing and has begun running outdoor signing workshops.
Richard Loizou
Richard is also a co-facilitator for the New Futures Forest Craft Youth Group. He is a qualified Forest School Leader, as well as a trained psychotherapist. Richard has led outdoor learning workshops and programmes in a variety of different contexts, including at Embercombe, On the Hill, Wildwise and Acorns. He is currently also building his own house!. Richard loves starting fires (bushcraft style) and bashing copper with hammers to make beautiful jewellery