The Garden Bristol CIC

What if they just play all day? Riding Shotgun (the inflatable crocodile), and splashing in the pool in the recent heat?

At The Garden we recognise that learning doesn't need lesson plans, a curriculum or a timetable. When people have time, space and encouragement to pursue their curiosity, amazing things happen!

"Would Shotgun sink if enough people climbed on?"

By getting interested in young people's questions, the potential for learning is phenomenal. This question led us to dive into exploring the physics of flotation this week. Without any need to ignore the need to cool down or to stop playing.

What if playing all day is the best education of all?

We’ll be at the always amazing Freedom to Learn Forum, which this year is at an incredible site in Hope Valley in the Peak District - see you there there for four magical days of co-creation and revolution ✨

📣 FREEDOM TO LEARN FORUM 2025 TICKETS

Tickets are now on sale for the Freedom to Learn Forum 2025!

This year will be the most co-created ever, with a proposal to move towards a gift economy culture. As always, anyone can propose a session on any topic and a big theme this year will be discussions around Freedom to Learn becoming an independent, cooperatively governed entity; and what that means for our ethos and strategy.

Join us for four glorious days of co-creation, curiosity and collective joy at a beautiful location in Hope Valley in the Peak District.

📸 Pictured is a session considering whether SDE is a cult from the Freedom to Learn Forum 2024 at East Kent Sudbury

🎟️ Tickets: https://opencollective.com/freedom-to-learn-uk/events/freedom-to-learn-forum-2025-d7d3230a

🎪 The Freedom to Learn Forum is an annual co-created gathering for anyone interested exploring social and environmental justice, through learning ecosystems. The Freedom to Learn Forum 2025 is 28th August - 1st September in the Peak District.

The Garden is fundamentally an organisation concerned with culture change and especially governance.

Founder and director of The Garden, was commissioned by the Transformational Governance Collective to write a piece called What Adults Can Learn from Young People about Transformational Governance - you can find a link to it on our Linktree in bio ✨

Are you invested in young people’s rights? Would you like to be a part of co-creating a new culture? The Garden is looking for someone to join the team to help lead us into the next phase of our self-directed learning community.

Application deadline Sunday 15th June.

Download our Join Our Team information pack from The Garden website, link in bio.

We have one space left on our Flow Lab pilot and it's now on Wednesdays :)

Would you like to join our pilot programme? Flow Lab is a new micro learning community for home educated young people 10-14, who are or wish to become more self-directed in their learning and living. It’s 10am-3pm on Wednesdays in St Werburghs.

There’s an explainer of the programme here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Fx9jYjWyrSp9pt9YJqGxASzhwugkraj/view?usp=sharing

You can apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScvXOcZ37zBHEgIzyypoNE0jXWrGF9Iiw1g1VFz0dXQSYFtgw/viewform?usp=sharing

Feel free to email [email protected] if you have any questions.

Last week we used our weekly community meeting to explore how we support friends experiencing conflict - with tangents into lots of connecting areas ... this picture is the shared notes

Themes included noticing differences in needs for regulating after conflict around cuddles, being alone or around others, time & relaxing in nature, talking...

Exploring how to navigate conflict with care is a huge life skill - and at The Garden supporting that is a central part of our practice. Our culture around conflict navigation is flexible, focused on individuals, coaching strategies, relationships, underlying needs.

It's a contrast to 'schooled' approaches to conflict with top down rules deciding who is right/wrong and punishments for those determined to be wrong.

Would you like to join our pilot programme? Flow Lab is a new micro learning community, on Tuesdays in St Werburghs, for home educated young people 10-14, who are or wish to become more self-directed in their learning and living.

There’s an explainer of the programme here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Nh38fgNnucd-kRNuwruTrel-SDz-IB5/view?usp=sharing

You can apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeAm_BbieV71K7yYRrtKLbQCeUrCdv1_L_ESLNQnsl_LS24EQ/viewform?usp=sharing

Feel free to email [email protected] if you have any questions.

💚 We’ve got a Garden community day coming up on Saturday 15th of March 💚

Community Days are an integral part of our community at The Garden. Doing site work collectively is part of how we make The Garden function as a project. It is part of the family agreement for all Garden families and is also open to broader community, family, friends and prospective families. It’s also a chance for us to be in community, make connections and celebrate the tasks we can do together 🥰

Our community days involve:

🗒️ Checking-in together at the start of the day and distributing tasks

🛠️Doing work around the site - we always celebrate the tasks we get done, and figure out how to work within our skills and physical capacities in a way that works for everyone: don’t worry if you don’t feel ‘expert!’

🍽️ Bringing food to have a shared lunch together - and cutlery and plates to serve and eat with!

💬 A Learning circle after lunch where we reflect on deschooling and our experiences as families and professionals learning outside of the mainstream. Our topic next saturday will be documenting self directed learning

🚯 Tidying up together and making sure to take any food/containers/packaging away: we don’t have bins on site.

🌿 Save the date🌞

Check website for how to find us etc!

‘I’m just a stim toy maker now’

A young person had found a calm place to sit when they had needed some alone time to regulate - and showed what they could do with the ivy leaves: make a stim toy that curls and uncurls and makes a nice quiet scraping sound. 

At The Garden, our high autonomy culture of self direction means that young people are often able to meet their own needs - using a huge range of creative strategies!

In a mainstream classroom,  advocating for the needs of children is often in tension with the discipline of the classroom. Adaptions such as only wearing a coat if the child is actually cold, being free to leave an overwhelming situation, having a fiddle toy, or participating in group discussions playfully through the voices of toys might only agreed when a professional such as an occupational therapist has become involved. These are all actions young people, given the permission to respond to their own needs, can - and at The Garden - do take for themselves!