At Our School in the Woods we see curiosity as the foundation of learning. We aim to inspire curiosity with stories and activities that explore the woodland and ignite interest in the issues affecting the wider world.
At the heart of our practice we aim to foster confidence, creativity and compassion in our children. We achieve this by providing a stimulating outdoor environment, combined with projects grounded in children’s interests and by having a team of empathetic adults who act as role models of compassion.
Central to our approach to teaching and learning at Our School in the Woods are some key principles:
Learning is a process not an outcome- This means that we do not participate in any formal tests, but rather we observe the children and find ways to support them to continue to learn.
Children learn in a playful way – They learn through following their curiosity, problem solving and creating their own projects.
We’ve learnt from experience that compulsion, testing, punishments or rewards are not good vehicles for learning. Instead we know that there are some keys to developing our learning community:
building close relationships with our children
having clear structures to the day
sharing responsibility
using a language of feelings and needs
having high expectations of how we all behave towards each other
We have been inspired by The Wood School project and offer thanks to Mary Maclachlan and May Molteno for their guidance and support.