Learning Freely

Our Philosophy

Self Directed Learning: We believe children are capable of constructing and directing their own learning and that allowing them to decide how they spend their time makes them feel that they are trusted, empowers them, and builds confidence and self-esteem.

Environment: We offer opportunities, provocations, encouragement and support, and provide a rich variety of resources, but our role is to nuture alongside our young people, rather than to direct them. Offerings are open-ended, based on the interests of the young people, rather than pre-conceived ideas about what they "should" be doing or learning. These offerings are experienced by the individual in whichever way is meaningful to them. The learner is always the best person to know in which direction they need to go next.

Facilitation: The adults in the project are learning alongside the children. We are lifelong learners and we must be willing to examine, challenge and, where necessary, change the beliefs we hold. We are all affected by our own programming and most of us need to go through a process of "deschooling" before we can truly let go of long-held beliefs about what learning looks like and what children need to spend their time doing to grow up to be successful individuals and valuable members of society. This deschooling can last a lifetime and is a deep process of unlearning that each member of our facilitation team commits to when they join.