Schedule
Regular hours at The Garden are 10am - 3pm Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Our Seasons are six week blocks interspersed with one or two week breaks and longer holidays, roughly but not exactly following the Bristol school terms.
2024-2025
Early Autumn Season: Tuesday 10th September - Thursday 17th October
Late Autumn Season: Tuesday 5th November - Thursday 12th December
Winter Season: Tuesday 7th January - Thursday 13th February
Early Spring Season: Tuesday 25th Feb - Thursday 3rd April
Late Spring Season: Tuesday 22nd April - Thursday 29th May
Summer Season: Tuesday 10th June - Thursday 17th July
A Day at The Garden
The Garden is set in an acre of diverse woodland and meadow that is secure and not open to the public. There is a large heated yurt an two covered seating areas.
Young people are involved in decision-making at all levels, wherever possible. This takes place through community meetings, during which adults and young people have an equal say.
We check in and out from the day as a whole community and share daily intentions and reflections in smaller, age-based groups. This is mirrored by the longer term intentions and reflections shared with the whole community at the start and end of each Season.
We use a variety of connection-based tools and approaches to collaboratively and individually plan projects and activities, including Agile Learning tools, Self-Managed Learning, project labs, parallel play and informal conversations.
Resources for specific projects or activities, human and otherwise, are brought in as and when required and requested, budget allowing.
Commitment & Fees
We ask all families to commit to the practice of deschooling, which we define as the process of examining and deconstructing the beliefs we hold because we live in a schooled society. Some of these beliefs relate directly to education but not all. It doesn’t matter where you are on your deschooling journey, as long as you’re prepared to be curious with us about the ideas. We provide support for this, including holding space for a collective reflective practice and offering a lending library of books.
A commitment to the three days is important to build a stable community in which ongoing relationships and projects can flourish. Though we cannot offer a drop in arrangement, attendance is always optional on a day to day basis. For the same reason we ask the families to commit to a year with us, though we realise that circumstances change and, as such, are not completely inflexible.
The Garden costs are on a sliding scale according to ability to pay. The fees are payable by season in advance. As we are registered with OFSTED it may be possible to get help with the fees through various government funded childcare schemes. Your first season at The Garden is free, though with some conditions and we will take a deposit if one Season’s fees. There’s detailed guidance on fee levels in The Garden Handbook (link below)..
An adult from each family is expected to volunteer one Community Day per Season to help with essential maintenance at The Garden. This is part of our fee structure and is therefore a required part of the commitment. These days are usually enjoyable and include deschooling support offerings and am optional shared lunch.
