A whole human approach to education
Human scale education
Size matters
Hawthorn Learning is a small, human-scale learning setting for students who are seeking enhancement to their home education or who are struggling or unable to attend school full-time. This consent-based setting is perfect for students who need to learn autonomously.
Our mission is to be a sustainable community for progressive, autonomous, human-scale education that nurtures and develops students; co-creating personalised learning that inspires a life of wonder and success.
Our learning pod
Community structured learning
Branch pod
A part-time education and learning pod that supplements home education, or works alongside schools, for students from 12 to 17 years. We have only a few spaces left in this pod at present.
Twig pod
A part-time education and learning pod that supplements home education, or works alongside schools, for students from 8 to 12 years. Open for admission now for September 2024.
Sprout pod
We hope this pilot project will allow the development of more learning community pods in the future. It is our intention to open a pod for 5 to 8 year olds in April 2025.
"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children"
Nelson Mandela
Progressive education
Our approach to education is truly human
Every part of Hawthorn Learning is considered and purposeful. We live our values and guiding principles and use these to make the decisions that govern how we run the setting, the organisation, the team and how we show up everyday.
- Human scale community-structured education
- Child-centred personalised learning pathways
- Consent-based and self directed learning
- Courageous growth through imperfection
- Consistently compassionate care
- Educator facilitated collaborative exploration
- Knowledge in context; connected to the diverse nature of self, human interaction and our world.
- Nurturing lifelong curiosity
Whole human approach
Trans-disciplinary curriculum
Natural human-scale environment
Autonomous learning time
We are part of the family.
All the way through.
When you join the Hawthorn Learning pod, you become part of the village. It isn’t just the student that joins, it is as a whole family. We work together as a community to build human relationships that nurture and last.
What people say about us
Testimonials
Feel like you don't fit?
We actively include people who often feel out of place
School refusal and anxiety
We are an ideal setting for students who have struggled with their mental health in a mainstream setting.
Autism and ADHD
We celebrate neurodiversity and specialise in meeting the needs of neurodivergent students whether officially diagnosed or not.
Learning and sensory differences
In a whole human approach to education, cognitive, learning and sensory needs and differences are considered in detail for every student.
Passionate about progressive education and neuropsychology
News and ideas
Heat transfer experiment
I experimented putting different materials on the heat sensitive paper to see how they would react and what transferred the heat best
Impromptu application
Maz and I (Tomlin) were surprised and delighted to receive an email from one of our students, who noticed that we have been so busy that we haven’t been able to post on social media as much as we would like to get the word out about our learning pod. He has a great deal of experience with social media and is keen to help.
The Puppet-Master by Josh
The Puppet-Master was a strange fellow, unusually quiet unless performing. He was brought up by his mother and father in the great land of Elswear, his Parents owned a puppet show in the middle of a small village called Afterand. The shows were loved by all kids on Elswear, people would travel across the Island to see their shows. However, as the people of their hometown grew older, they
