Home Education Collaborative
If you’ve already engaged with us, and you’re ready for the next step, contact us here for an application form.
Read a summary of our work over the last 9 years here and see examples of experiences in our gallery
Creating resilience and versatility for the future.
Welcome to our exciting new development to promote local sustainability and improve health and opportunities for children and young people!
After 9 years of working with the home-ed community, we are being called to expand and evolve our work and co-create a collaborative project with parents, children and the wider community. We’ll be supporting children initially from 6-14 years with a view to continuing with children up to 16 years.
Key points that make this path different:
Cultivating ADAPTABILITY and CONFIDENCE through mastering diverse skills to meet our fast-changing times. This will be through a diverse spectrum of TRADITIONAL & ANCESTRAL CRAFT and CREATING A PERMACULTURE FOOD FOREST.
RECONNECTION with Nature and natural processes to be able to make more earth-friendly choices in life
PRIORITISING a child’s DEVELOPMENT above all else - this approach is designed to serve children’s growth on all levels ( not about pressure to deliver curriculum and test )
NO TESTING or pressure to fit into a box (learning is not linear!). Instead, personalised mentoring/tutoring with clear goals in areas appropriate to their stage of development ; intellectual, emotional, relational, social, physical, psychological, spiritual.
SCREEN-FREE culture - engaging children with REAL life and real skills. Nurturing creative thinking and action and knowledge through EXPERIENCE. (As children progress to older years we help support self-regulated use of screens.)
TRAUMA-INFORMED. We understand that a lot of children’s behaviour stems from physiological triggering and that our role is to model self-regulation and help co-regulate a child’s activated nervous system. Our emphasis is on the teaching-and-learning relationship and the growth opportunities that are always present (within the parameters of safety for everyone).
Why 3 days?
We would love to work more closely and to greater depth with our children to nurture greater resilience and skill in a fast-moving and challenging world. The range of learning experiences that can be offered in 3 days will help children be better prepared for life : emotionally, relationally, practically and intellectually. They will also have the opportunity to forge deeper bonds of belonging with each other.
What will it look like?
We envisage 3 days from 9.45am-2.45pm, Tuesday to Thursday with Mentors who bring a whole diversity of skills.
In the morning children explore a particular topic (relevant to their age and stage of development ) through the the Arts. The afternoon will be Craft/Landskills - a carousel of life-skill activities, ideally related to local traditional Suffolk craft as well as to the seasons of the year.
A nutritious midday meal is cooked and shared by the children on some days.
Why a collaborative?
We aim to build a community where self-development is a key principle, not just for the children, young people and teaching staff, but for parents too; where learning opportunities are on offer to everyone, so that we might co-create a community skilled in the ways of regenerative living and social ecology and where self-expression and authenticity are ,modelled and celebrated. A much-needed ‘village’ to raise and compassionately hold the challenges of bringing up children, together, in particular the important transitions of the teenage years.
We invite families to bring their skills to the running and thriving of our project.
What our Mentors bring
Our Mentors are a mixture of teachers, parents (with a particular skill), local craftspeople, artists, musicians etc. who bring a wealth of experience in using creative approaches and in working in service of children . The Mentors’ priority and commitment is to the flourishing of every child. Mentors will use the best tools available whilst serving the essence of how children develop. Our commitment is to nurture confident, creative young people who know themselves at a deeper level. Our approach honours the ‘whole’ child : psycho-spiritually, emotionally and physically. We recognise the individuality of each person and proactively seeks to support the self-awareness so important in children and young people discovering who they are.
The learning approach we favour is embodied and experiential, so we are never learning just with our intellect, but engaging all of ourselves: emotions and physicality too. The foundational presence of the Arts & Craft ensure that children meet themselves fully, going to their edge in order to grow. This also cultivates confidence in being a ‘creative being’ on the planet (rather than just a consumer) - an invaluable capacity for crafting one’s life and navigating the larger world.
The use of Drama in our learning brings learning experiences more alive for the children and young people as they embark on ‘enquiries’ which will nurture agency, self-motivation and independent thinking.
Cultivating a deep love of Nature and for all the other-than-human community is an integral part of the our approach. What’s more, a connection to the Natural World is present in every session experienced as we reclaim our rightful place as citizens of the Earth.
Next Steps
If you would like your family to be part of this new initiative and are motivated to support or become part of the team, please email marisa@renaturing.co.uk