An Awakening

The Full Story

For five years, I immersed myself in the world of alternative education—researching, observing, and dreaming of something better, creating new ideas. After two decades inside the traditional system, I had seen enough. Enough talent wasted on meaningless tests. Enough creativity suffocated. Enough stress weighing down students and teachers alike.

When I moved to Sweden, I was determined to bring these ideas to life. I met incredible people who believed, like me, that education should be something more—something heart-centered, flexible, and freeing. But the system was rigid, fearful of change, cracking under its own weight. Bold decisions weren’t being made. Children weren’t being set free to thrive.

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So my family and I left Sweden. On an adventure. A journey. An Awakening.

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We travelled the world, stepping inside classrooms in rainforests, cities, and jungles. We explored play-based pedagogy, forest schools, neurodivergent learning spaces, schools for autistic young people, and even institutions for those labelled as criminals. We watched, we listened, and we asked: How does the research hold up in practice?

And what did I learn? Ground yourself. Meet people where they are, on their terms. Build relationships. When you do that, learning unfolds in the most natural, joyous ways.

Oh, and one more thing—we also learnt that world schooling (home education on the road) is not the romantic, idealistic dream we had imagined! It’s messy, unpredictable, and, at times, utterly exhausting. But it’s also full of moments of deep connection, real-world learning, and experiences no classroom could ever provide.

The final stage of our journey brought us back to the UK—not for a grand finale, but for something far more practical: to refill our very depleted bank accounts. Little did I know what awaited.

Unbeknownst to me, a home education revolution had been unfolding. The Department for Education reported that 153,300 children were registered for elective home education (EHE) at some point during the 2023/24 academic year, a sharp rise from 126,100 the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of pupils with an Education, Health, and Care (EHC) plan in England surged by 11.6%, reaching 434,000—part of a staggering 83.4% increase since 2016. And these now feel like conservative estimates!

Back in my home county of Norfolk, I discovered a thriving network of alternative education providers, all working to stem the tide as the cracks in mainstream education widened. Then, in the spring of 2024, Earthschool held its first community gathering in a stunning community garden in Wymondham. The response was overwhelming, and from that single meeting, an alliance was born—a collective vision for something new, something needed, something beautiful.

Over the following months, we evolved into GROW, a living learning system with collaboration at its core. At its heart sits the Norwich Self-Directed Learning Community, embraced by Treow Forest School and Alternative Provision and nurtured by the Tend Collective. We searched for place together, collaborated with others and created networks. As 2024 closed we were all growing in our own directions, putting down roots in different ways, but all connected, like the Mycelium; the dream remains very real.

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Earthschool is very much alive, it has travelled a long way and has learnt much.

Bring on 2025! 🚀🌱