Willowbank started with a love of the outdoors and a simple belief: there’s more than one way to learn.

In 2021, Pat founded PDK Education, combining his passion for fishing and the outdoors with more than 25 years of experience in education. His aim was to create something different, a place where young people could step outside the traditional classroom, learn through real experiences and begin to see what they were capable of.

​

In 2022, Elizabeth joined forces with Pat, bringing her own wealth of experience across outdoor education, specialist teaching and mainstream and independent schools. Together, they shared a belief that education shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all, particularly for young people who have struggled to find their place within traditional education.

​

They wanted to create an environment where young people could feel understood, build confidence and experience success in a way that worked for them. Somewhere learning could happen through doing, exploring, creating and spending time outdoors.

​

From those beginnings, Willowbank has continued to grow and evolve. What started with PDK has developed into a wider family of education provisions, offering different environments and approaches, from fishing and forest school to practical outdoor learning and more structured academic support.

​

Along the way, we’ve listened to young people, families, schools and professionals and continued to develop our approach around what learners actually need.

​

Our belief remains the same: every young person deserves the opportunity to find a way of learning that works for them, to discover their strengths and to feel that they can succeed. Sometimes, it just takes a different environment to unlock what’s possible.