So.....I couldnt afford the two local alternative schools (250 euro a month), and I was not going to put my creative and active son into a local 'prison style' school, Because he needs to play with other kids (mum gets boring!) and enjoys being in nature and being wild I decided that I would start a small free school in our valley for our local kids that me and other parents could afford!.. the story below...

The above photo is from our first school trip up into the snow 2 months after starting the school 4 years ago.

My plan was that I knew there were many amazing kind creative talented wonderful people out there who would want to volunteer to spend 4 hours a day 4 days a week, living simply in a straw bale house off grid high in the mountains in our (anarchistic?!) community/village, there wouldn't be a whole lot of money, but enough to have a good life while they lived with us. I had build a cob, a cob tee-pee (the volcano!) and another straw bale house modeled on my own first build (see previous steemit post/blog) for teacher accommodation, and a sort of solid yurt for the school. With another great team of generous volunteers we built another straw bale house for the third teacher, (4th teacher has her own house in the valley)

One of the reasons I was sure those people were out there was that I'd recently done three eco builds and for each build around 50 people wanted to take part, (could only take first 5 for each team) also I'd had many amazing helpx-ers and woofers hang out with my son in my house while I handmade boots beside him to provide the money for the builds and for the free school project, I am a firm believer in that I shouldn't be the only adult to influence my son and there are many with great skills to share with him!, and also that heart and energy are more important when hiring someone for the job then qualifications, which is how we ended up with Luke (who was actually very qualified!) Jade and Maria for our first year, all heart and a strong passion for alternative child led education made this a very special team, the kids loved them and that was the most important thing :-). parents paid a suggested 'donation' every week per child and we all took responsibility to help clean and fix the school in turn. We also do fund-raisers and organize fun school trips.

So we built the yurt with local materials both recycled and donated, we had our team of great teachers and 15 kids!

Now in our fourth year, we have 4 teachers and 25 kids, Child led, there are creative, fun or interesting projects and activities offered every day but no one has to do anything, so some play in and around the school, art room the new adventure playground while others get busy painting, building, writing, drawing and recently making music and music videos! There is plenty of mountain to play on, a stream and even a zip wire! also tree houses and an art studio built on 2 years ago to the back of the main yurt. The kids have full access to tools, art materials and there are lots of books and story time, the kids can 'make a deal' to study a subject such as writing, science or maths for an agreed amount of hours if they choose, many do. There are after school clubs where the older kids can have a more quiet environment to do projects such as robot building, puppet making or recording raps/songs they have written themselves, they also recently made a school magazine

4 years ago to start the school I advertised on every alternative education website I could find, and with 15 applicants that first year we were so lucky to have Luke, he turned my dream into a reality and made the school even better then I ever could have imagined, We feel very blessed to have had him for 3 years, and now we again have an amazing new team with some teachers returning and some new ones too, as always the kids vote on which teachers should stay. More on our 'Kids Space' later :-)