The Beach Schoolers and Kirsty @throughthehedge spent some time this week exploring natural clay. Clay is often overlooked in early years and schools for being a bit messy and unpredictable but it actually has the most incredible soft responsive sensory qualities. Clay lends itself to open ended creativity because children often need lots of time working withContinue reading “Clay Work”
Tag Archives: Beach School
Tips for Adults in a Child-Supporting Role at Beach and Forest School
The Forest School philosophy is about connecting children (and adults) to their natural environment, creating opportunities to develop creativity, confidence, resilience and learning, as well as promoting ways in which children can experience risk. Forest School is often described as a child-led process, but I think it is much more helpful to think of itContinue reading “Tips for Adults in a Child-Supporting Role at Beach and Forest School”
August at the Beach School
August is the month that most people in the UK associate with going to the beach. Peak summer holiday season – sandcastles, picnics, chips in paper. I love it all. However, at our August sessions of Family Beach Explorers, I wanted to people to experience a different side to the coast – to really connectContinue reading “August at the Beach School”
Celebrating September – Seas and Seeds
I truly love September. Maybe it’s because I am a perpetual academic, but it feels like a real new year – a fresh page and full of promise. It’s also a time of warmth, energy, abundance, growth and fruitfulness. It’s a really wonderful time on our coast. Here’s what we’ll be celebrating this month atContinue reading “Celebrating September – Seas and Seeds”
Making an Everyday Difference
I was very honoured to have been invited by East Kent-based Creative Business Coach, Ruth Poundwhite, to join a group of creative entrepreneurs to talk about how they are intentionally making a difference with their businesses – to the world around them and also to themselves. I make no secret about starting the Beach SchoolContinue reading “Making an Everyday Difference”
Creatures of the Deep: Training to be a Marine Mammal Surveyor
The first place I saw a seal was here, off Deal Pier. The Channel’s Grey Seals, with their proud long noses are often mistaken for swimming dogs, just ask my sea-swimming husband, who was once asked why he had left his Labrador in the water. However, this was no land mammal. No dog could swimContinue reading “Creatures of the Deep: Training to be a Marine Mammal Surveyor”
Beach Schooled: I’m not the Teacher
What’s the first thing you think of when I say ‘learning’ to you? Books? Classrooms? Pupils and teachers? Probably not playing on the beach. At Little Gulls, our approach to learning is inspired by the Forest School ethos. We’re not a traditional learning establishment, we don’t deliver education in the traditional manner. But we doContinue reading “Beach Schooled: I’m not the Teacher”
Plastic Free July
Back at the beginning of the month, I made a bold decision that our Beach School activities were going to go totally single-use plastic free and that anything we made would be totally biodegradable and compostable. And we did it. And I feel very proud. Modelling environmental stewardship is possibly the greatest way to teachContinue reading “Plastic Free July”
Holdfast Beach and Forest School - East Kent, UK 