Discoveries is for children born between September 2011 and August 2013, meeting in a welcoming space in Eastville with a large, leafy garden and wooded area.
Hear directly from the Discoveries as they share what it’s really like learning in a home education environment, from flexibility and creativity to feeling able to be themselves, truly heard and supported.
With a growing number of families seeking alternatives to mainstream schooling, a rise of over 60% in home education registrations in recent years, it’s clear that more people are rethinking what learning can look like.
Watch now and see learning through their eyes.
The group is held by individual subject tutors and group guardians, Anna and Natasha. They currently study film making, handwork, dance, drama, art and humanities.
Watch the video to see the wide range of subjects the Discoveries are diving into each week!
Working together our cooperative allows us to follow interests and the kids passion for exploration, curiosity, and real world learning.
The group is further supported by parents and skilled individuals for handwork, dance and movement, singing, crafts and games.
Think home education means learning alone? Think again!
In this video, hear from the kids themselves about the friendships, fun, and community they’ve found in the Discoveries.
Topics
For their Geology topic the Discoveries started with mountains, rocks, Pangea, plate movements, earthquakes, volcanoes, the rock cycle, coal, petroleum, metals and gems.
This was supported by a wonderful workshop held by Mark Smalley (BBC Radio 4 presenter) and Tom Walmsley (from Nature Connection and Eco Lab), who shared with the group their geological knowledge and expertise. The children wrote poems inspired by the rock collection and, choosing a rock each, they conversed with it and asked it questions! They also learned about fossils and Tom’s pet kestrel ‘Sandy’.
As park of their animal topic the children were able to research an animal of their choice. They created clay animals and produced an environment for them to live in and wrote a summary of their findings.
The Discoveries visited Eastwood Farm in Brislington with One Tree Per Child to plant some trees. The group planted a mix of native trees including Rowan, Silver Birch, Wild Cherry and Oak. They helped with all aspects of the planting from digging the holes, planting and mulching.
The Discoveries display at the end of year celebration of work.
End of term treat to see a movie at 20th Century Flicks.
Contact Discoveries
To find out more please email discoveriesappletree@gmail.com