Asociatia Green School

Green School is an educational center hosting a kindergarten and a primary school where learning is self-directed, experiential, based on projects and mainly happens in nature. We have started our journey in 2017, by opening our gates and hearts to a group of kindergarten children and a group of primary school children, and have grown until today, having 2 groups in kindergarten and 3 groups in primary school. We create learning contexts for children, youth, adults, educators and parents as well. We have different volunteering programmes and courses for educators from around the world, sharing our knowledge on agile and self directed learning. Green School’s mission is to develop research based learning context, using the pedagogy of responsibility, for children, youth, parents and educators. We have 7 guiding principles: I take care of myself I take care of my colleagues I take care of Green School I trust myself I trust my colleagues I trust Green School My opinion matters We apply these principles in our daily lives, in our communication with children, with parents and our partners. Our main target group are parents with children aged 3 to 10, educators working in outdoor learning, educators from traditional schools, youngsters and youth workers. We have different projects and courses that address all of these target groups. In the kindergarten and school group we work with an emerging curriculum, where children, parents and educators contribute to the learning experience of each child, creating a process that follows the rhythm of each child. We follow the philosophy of Agile Learning and give children the freedom to choose in which area they would like to develop, but also maintain the balance, by introducing activities through which they can learn to read, write and calculate, competencies that help them enlarge their knowledge base with the support of the educators in areas in which each of them are interested. We have organised summer camps for children aged 10 to 14, working with them on developing self esteem, self confidence, teaching them non violent communication skills, by creatively using games and creating their own games. In Green School we raise children able to recognise their own emotions and needs, other’s emotions and needs. We work together with parents to better understand the development of their children and to support them in their cognitive and socio-emotional journey, towards becoming responsible, emotionally stable and non-violent members of the community. We have organised courses for educators working in formal and non-formal education about conflict management, non-violent communication and mindfulness, giving forward our knowledge and setting an example of good practice for nature based education.