Wow 2023 – Our 5th year.
Kinda Education’s role is to support the children and adults we work alongside to reconnect to the wild, each other and themselves.
To observe the joy within the freedom to be themselves, and to be part of the progress they each make in their social confidence and personal development fills us all with absolute gratitude.
Each one of us need different ‘things’ to thrive, and at Kinda we create a space where -alongside meeting the basic needs- we make the adjustments needed to meet individuals needs too.
Anyone who has visited us will walk into a woodland, be warmly welcomed, given a tour, offered a drink and- if they arrive at the right time-offered a lovingly cooked campfire meal.
To enable our woodland sessions there is always lots of work going on outside of the woods!
Here are a few things we feel proud of in 2023 that have only been achievable due to the kind, passionate, skilled and committed team at Kinda Education.
• We’ve grown our provision from offering sessions 3 days a week to 6 days a week.
• The number of diversely skilled facilitators has doubled to 40 people.
(Here are the ones we’ve added to the website –https://kindaforestschool.com/who-we-are/ with more to add)
• We’ve added new job roles to our community that includes a full time Vision Holder (our version of a CEO) , Play Catalysts, Nature Mentors, alternative Provision Coordinators and Hearth Keepers.
•We’ve been joined by two new highly skilled Direction Keepers to our organisation ( DK’s are our version of Directors) who support us with meeting needs of both the children and adults, support us in our interview process and helps with team wellbeing and training.
• Our administration circle has doubled in size to enable us to continue our digital transformation as an organisation, along with supporting our massively growing team, and offering high quality communication for our elders, families and referrers. In addition, taking on more Human Resources to help us build into a strong and sustainable organisation.
•We’ve developed our bespoke holistic observation methods to help us support our most vulnerable tribe members. The sessional and termly observations are used to support in EHCP reports and within other professional meetings. They also help schools demonstrate to Ofsted the holistic long-term benefits of children attending our sessions.
•We have become active advocates for both the children and adults that access Kinda.
•In February, we had our first Ofsted inspection and came out with flying colours. The report written made us feel very proud. (https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50210642)
•We became Quality Assured by Norfolk County Council for our alternative provision, alongside our Suffolk County Council Quality Assurance badge.
•We registered Kinda Education as an Qualification Centre with the awarding body ITC First which enables us to deliver Forest School and other qualifications (watch this space for upcoming dates….)
•Our home education and flexi school tribe have continued to thrive and grow, and have even been interviewed for webinars and a podcast.
•Our Alternative Provision runs 3 different days a week and hold space for children who need time away from school to develop in a gentle woodland setting.
•Woodsisters continues to grow with an online membership of over 450 women and up to 30 of us meet each month around the camp fire.
•Our Elders Tribe continue to gather and share wisdom and laughter each week. The circle is always full , over 20 local elders gather each session .
•Community tribe has developed into our Family tribe and is full of laughter from all ages.
•We’ve offered high quality Continuous Professional Development for both outside participants and our kinda team with Sara Knight, Jon Cree and Mell Harrison .
•We’ve run workshops and held community camps at our sister site Brooke Farm .
•We have also been helping to re-generate a 17 acre arable field back into Suffolk wilderness.
And the last two months, to finish up our year we’ve been preparing a new woodland site which we will be moving onto this month.
( more news on that coming later this week)
We have so much gratitude for each person who walks into our woods, for each of you brings a magic that makes Kinda what it is.
See you in the woods in 2024.
2024 news coming very soon!
Kinda Elders in the woods 