Anna Robinson and Cindy Adams have come up with the idea of ‘The Green House Project’. It is a school located in South Stroke, Bath, UK. This school is for kids from 5-14 years and the timely fee is £1,250. This school is the best school as here are no rules, no exams and no uniforms. Students are not taught education, but the main target is to teach them ‘how to resolve problems’, ‘how to find their passion in life’ and ‘how to play without supervision’.
The teachers here, Ms Robinson and Ms Adams both mothers and qualified teachers allow the 23 kids to do whatever they wish to. They don’t have desks at the schools, instead students are asked to spend their time playing outside. The students are allowed to wear whatever they wish to; even kids can be seen climbing trees barefoot.
The school runs 3 days a week, from Monday to Wednesday that too in a yurt with wood burning stove. During the class, they sit in circles and give presentations about their passion which they chose like ballet or any other thing they have interest in.
The school’s intentions are to make the students understand safety by taking risks. They climb trees and even carry whittling knifes with them. The kids are divided in 2 groups, the Wolf Cubs for kids of 5-7 years and the Wolf Pack, for kids of 7-14 years. The Green House Project is for learning community, the kids are allowed to learn social skills through collaborative learning.
Ms Adams said, “There is a saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and that is what we are trying to encourage. We are a real community, the children, parents and mentors; we are all one big family. Children learn so much through play and interaction with each other, we want them to discover the best of themselves.” Ms Adams told that they came up with the idea when they realized their disappointment with the education system.
“I think there is too much pressure on children in mainstream schools. There is something wrong when research shows young children are suffering high levels of anxiety. In our schools, we do yoga, meditation and mindfulness and we encourage free play. We want our children to be happy – you can’t learn if you are anxious.”
She added, “We start each day with circle time, a Native American tradition. Then each child will give a presentation about their chosen passion, it can be anything from ballet, Hebrew traditions to snow leopards. We use technology and they have their power points, but we like to work as a community and spend lots of time outdoors.”
Ms Robinson said, “While safety is at the core of what we do, we also like our children to explore, not to be afraid to do things. We let them climb trees and carry around their whittling knives – we believe they learn safety by understanding the risks and being allowed to do things without always being supervised.”
