OUTDOOR EDUCATION
Online Capacity Building Program for Early Childhood and Early Primary Educators
OUTDOOR EDUCATION shows teachers how to implement the most sought-after educational approach of modern times!
This capacity development program helps teachers implement Outdoor Education in early years setting as part of their daily strategy easily and effortlessly. Teachers will learn:
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how to create and offer the most inspiring outdoor Play & Learning environment to support Experiential Whole Person and Cross-curricular Learning
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how to use the existing outdoor natural environment and the resources available to promote Self-directed Learning and nurture children's Leadership Mindset
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how to use outdoor learning experiences to easily cover your curriculum
Why Outdoor Learning is the approach that teachers should master now?
Outdoor education is gaining the momentum now as more and more educators recognise its benefits and realise that pen-paper and technology-based education is not enough to prepare children for the future.
Countries such as the UK, Canada, Finland and few other Scandinavian countries have been effectively incorporating Outdoor Learning in the early years education. More and more countries join them including Singapore that now offers dedicated degree path for Outdoor Education.
The current reality is that children spend the majority of their time indoors and still the most popular approach is Passive Learning: pen-paper oriented, worksheet-based or recently technology based academic education that not only is not effective but also negatively impacts children’s holistic development including their physical, mental and emotional health.
Outdoor Education promotes holistic learning in the best way possible as there are many natural opportunities for Multi-sensory, Cross-curricular and Experiential Learning that indoor pre-structured environments cannot offer.
It's truly the FUTURE LEARNING -ORIENTED approach - reconnecting children with the real world and offering them support to develop their Core Life Skills.
What is Outdoor Education?
Outdoor Education is the most powerful way to offer truly Future-oriented early years education, nurture core life skills and children’s natural leadership mindset.
Outdoor Education is essentially about using the existing natural outdoor environments with all its amazing opportunities to support children’s Whole-Person and Cross-curricular Learning.
The outdoor environment offers teachers and children the ultimate multi-sensory and cross-curricular package - the best educational contexts, tools, resources, experiences.
How Outdoor Education supports children's holistic growth and development?
- The learning will always be Experiential, as much hands-on as possible so that children can get involved actively and directly. They will experiment, test, try, explore, move things around, mix, match, build, construct, create, jump, climb…Such engagement helps children use their existing skills, understanding and knowledge, apply it directly and see the outcome, predict results, modify, adjust, reflect, evaluate. It’s the experience that pen and paper or technology based education will never be able to offer.
- Outodoor education will always be Multisensory so that children are be able to learn using all their senses, their bodies and deeply immerse in the experiences offered. They will be able to touch, smell, see, move, listen, feel textures, weight, size, shapes, colours, use their hands, palms, feet. They will also be able to be louder than indoors.
- Outdoor learning is a Whole Person Learning meaning it supports all areas of children’s development: physical, emotional, cognitive, social, supports language and communication development, reasoning, creativity, understanding of the world.
- Outdoor education is one of the best and easiest way to offer Cross-curricular Learning. Every single experience the children are involved in will essentially be multi disciplinary and will help you address many aspects of your curriculum if you need to follow one.
Can you implement Outdoor Education in any climate?
Absolutely! Outdoor Education is not reserved for mild climates only. In fact, many countries with cold and tropical weather implement Outdoor Education with great success.
Children enjoy learning outdoors regardless of the weather and geography. With our OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR Teacher Training programme you will learn how to implement Outdoor Education easily and effectively maximising the potential and utilising the opportunities that your climate, weather and geography offer to your children.
OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR - Powerful On-the-Job Online Teacher Training Program
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Fully hands-on and experiential Training Program. Total Duration: 1 month
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Instant on-the-job implementation + practical tasks, discussions and brainstorming sessions
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All training sessions are based on micro learning - with compact up to 15 minute pre-recorded video lessons
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Teachers' everyday working environment is used as training environment for your staff
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Ready-to-use powerful tools & strategies that teachers can implement immediately
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Packed with case-studies, real-life scenarios and examples of best practice
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Synchronised with teachers' everyday duties - no extra workload and no extra study time after hours needed
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Fully EYFS aligned + optimised for all existing curriculum frameworks and national standards
OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR ™ - Powerful Hands-on Teacher Training Program
We’ve created this unique Transformation Teacher Training Program for Early Childhood Education & Care providers and Primary Teachers basing on over 12 years of work under the British EYFS and 25+ years of experience in the education sector. We’ve combined our hands-on experience as Early Childhood Education Professionals with our in-depth subject matter expertise as Assessors in Children’s Care, Learning and Development (CCLD) as well as Assessors-Evaluators in Early Years Professional Status (EYPS). On top of that, we’ve added our insights as teacher trainers, online & offline course designers, and Personalised Learning Experiences facilitators.
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OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR ™ is an online experiential Teacher Training Program for Early Childhood Education and Early Primary Teachers. The total duration of the program is 4 weeks
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The program allows for instant on-the-job implementation, and provides loads of practical tasks and hands-on activities to complete
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All training sessions are based on the principles of micro learning - over 30 pre-recorded video lessons that are up to 15 minutes long each
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Teachers' everyday working environment can be used as a training environment
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Ready-to-use powerful tools & strategies that teachers can implement immediately
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Packed with case-studies, real-life scenarios and examples of best practice
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Fully aligned with the EYFS, and optimised for all existing curriculum frameworks and national standards
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Self-paced interactive online training program that all teachers can complete on their own
What Teachers will learn:
Teachers will be able to implement Outdoor Education the way world's best educators do. Teachers will learn:
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how to create Outdoor Play & Learning Stations to support Self-directed learning, Child-led Play and Free Flow
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how to maximise the existing outdoor environment opportunities including geographical features, climate, landscape
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how to design outdoor learning environments to use it on a daily basis to promote Cross-curricular and Experiential learning
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how to use natural resources and turn them into powerful learning and educational aids to support learning and play
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how to promote Safe and Manageable Risk Taking through Outdoor Education
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how to perform daily Risk Assessment to make sure the outdoor environment is safe
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how to promote Gross-motor skills and child's healthy physical development using Outdoor Education
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how to promote Self-directed Learning and Child-led Play using Outdoor Education
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how to automate planning processes in learning outdoors and support Personalised Learning
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how to support all areas of child development through Whole Person Experiential Learning
OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR ™ - fully aligned with all Curriculum Frameworks & all National Standards!
Our cutting-edge Teacher Training Program is not another curriculum framework. However, it can be fully aligned with ANY national standards and official requirements for Early Childhood Education & Care of any country in the world. All without adding any extra workload or additional paperwork!
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Our training content is fully aligned with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) - the UK statutory framework setting standards for the learning, development and care of children from birth to 5 years old.
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It's also aligned with the Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) - the UK Government-endorsed accreditation for Early Years Professionals (ages 0-5).
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And it's aligned with the British National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) Level 2 & 3 in Children’s Care, Learning and Development (CCLD) and School PlayWork.
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This training program goes beyond constantly changing trends in the sector - it's compatible with major approaches in Early Childhood Education such as Montessori, Steiner, Reggio-Emilia, Waldorf, Finnish Education, etc.
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It's optimised for the Singaporean NEL Framework and Australian EAL.
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The content is all early childhood and early primary curriculum frameworks friendly.
International Certification
Excellent way to demonstrate your Professional Development (PD)!
Our unique Certificate of Completion outlines the core training content and shows the alignment with two UK frameworks - the Early Years Foundation Stage national framework (EYFS), and National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) Level 3 in Children's Care Learning Development (CCLD) and School Playwork.
About Natural Born Leaders
Magdalena Matulewicz & Witold Matulewicz
- Experienced Teacher Trainers, Curriculum Developers and Course Designers
- UK-certified Assessors-Evaluators in Child Care Learning Development and Play (CCLD and School Playwork)
- Early Years Professional Status Assessors (EYPS) - responsible for assessing the quality of Early Years and Early Childhood provisions in the UK and training Early Years Professionals
- World Schooling Parents
Our Story
We’ve always believed that the role of an educator is to empower every child, to celebrate them for their gifts and uniqueness, to help them discover their talents and to offer them the most enabling environments to learn to their full potential. However, we grew up in Eastern Europe where discipline, labels and outdated teaching approaches were our reality and this left it's mark on our lives and self-image. Our natural talents were considered a "burden" and we grew up believing we were doomed to fail. This is the very reason we promised ourselves to make a real change in the way early years education is offered to all children around the world.
When we started our teaching career we knew we were able to work completely differently to 98% of other teachers - because we could see the world through the eyes of the child.
We had already been working along the principles of Personalised and Experiential Learning, but we constantly met people telling us that it was not possible to achieve any results without structured teaching, without rigid frameworks, discipline, testing and the same uniform goals for all children. We knew it wasn't true!
They would tell us we were dreamers.
One September night we made a bold decision that changed our lives forever. We left our country and decided to learn from the best. Cut the story short, we owned and managed one of the most challenging business - our own multilingual early childhood education provision.
And we did this in one of the most effective and at the same time the most demanding countries in the world - the United Kingdom - where a mistake can cost you losing your business, and where an unexpected inspection may appear at your setting at any time.
Our skills and insights were recognised and we were invited to work with prestigious educational institutions to deliver training to other early years education providers, and to inspect their provision to make sure they met the requirements of the British National Standards - the EYFS.
We were even featured in the Guardian as the ones who can potentially introduce major changes in Early Years education in the UK.
- We worked as assessors and evaluators in a few governmental projects such as the Early Years Professional Status (EYPS), National Vocational Qualifications in Child Care Learning and Development (CCLD), and National Vocational Qualifications in School Playwork.
- We collaborated with the biggest and the most respected Higher Education institutions in the country such as the Tribal Group, Kingston University, the JGA Group, and Canterbury Christ Church University.
- During the past 10 years we have inspected and assessed over 100 Early Childhood provisions - many of them represented the highest standards in education, whereas many were still far from it.
- We have travelled across and lived in 30 different countries where we've made friends with locals, lived their lifestyle, participated in their local customs, events and gatherings. We've visited local playgrounds, museums, children-dedicated places, nurseries and schools. We've talked to teachers, parents, children, and visionaries. We've experienced, tested, observed, compared, contrasted, evaluated, and enjoyed local infrastructure, parks, public spaces for families and children. We've seen the best and not so great. After all these years of living in the world education holds no secrets for us.
- We've been world schooling our son for 13 years non-stop. He's never been to school but he's been learning from the world all his life with great success. We've mastered facilitating Outdoor Education in an early years setting and while travelling with our son. We have a deep understanding of Formal Education, Home Schooling, and Personalised Learning. We've experienced how children can flourish on both paths and what it takes to "get it right" for them.
- Our professional insights combined with life experience give us a unique Global Perspective. We know what all children have in common, no matter the location. We also understand the local perspective of educators and what they need in order to be able to offer the same highest quality of Early Childhood Education and Care.
The Secret Ingredient
After all these years we can confidently say that we know the secret of the world class Early Years provision - the one that can successfully nurture children’s natural leadership mindset and offer full potential learning.
The most successful settings are doing certain things the same way. They follow exactly the same procedures, they have the same systems in place, they share the same values.
We’ve put our experience and knowledge together, we've boiled it down, and since that time we’ve been busy creating most powerful teacher training programmes that the world has ever seen - that's one of our promises! These programmes incorporate all key ingredients that guarantee the learning processes are highly personalised and empowering both for for every teacher that takes part in the training and eventually for every child, and that each child is celebrated for their uniqueness. This in turn serves as a very strong foundation for nurturing children’s natural leadership mindset.
If you decide to join our cutting-edge Outdoor Education Activator Master Teacher Training Program, we are going to reveal all the key principles that have to be in place in order to offer the world class Outdoor Education.
Teachers will learn how to incorporate the most effective educational approaches to offer Outdoor Education.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Who is this program for?
Our cutting-edge OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR Transformation Teacher Training Program has been designed for Early Childhood Education & Care providers - preschools, nurseries, kindergartens, play & learning centres, day cares, and after-school clubs. In particular, we are addressing all ambitious educators, thought leaders and visionaries who desire to make a long-term and positive impact on children's lives, who are deeply interested in children's well-being, who wish to offer world class Early Years Education and aspire to join the 2% of World's Top Educators.
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How do you deliver your training program? Is it available online, or will you come to our setting to deliver it in-person?
The entire training content of OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR program is delivered as pre-recorded video training materials that are uploaded on an online platform, and that can be accessed from anywhere in the world (providing you have Internet). The training content is also mobile optimised. Although the educational input is offered as online mode, the entire training happens in-house and will need to be facilitated either by setting manager, senior teacher or a designated person that will manage the group of teachers and facilitate the experience for them.
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My setting follows the National Curriculum of our country - how will this affect the learning process for my teachers?
Our OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR training program is curriculum independent, and at the same time all-curriculum-friendly. In fact, the entire training content goes beyond any curriculum framework - it's based on pure methodology of working with Early Years children and the principles of Positive Pedagogy. So, whatever Curriculum Framework you follow, our staff training program will fit it nicely and elevate any early years provision to the next level.
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What is the time commitment and intensity?
All training content has been fully aligned with teachers' daily professional duties, so no extra workload will be needed to complete the program. Teachers will be able to apply all tools and strategies that they learn right away. The entire OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR program is optimised for 1-2 months - this will give teachers enough time for implementation and integration of the training content. Each training session is based on a micro learning mode - teachers' time commitment is estimated for 20-30 minutes per session only. However, since the training content consists of hands-on tasks and experiential projects that will need to be implemented as part of teachers' everyday duties, the actual time of their implementation within the setting will depend on the teachers themselves.
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What if I own/manage/consult more than one setting? How can they participate in this program too?
Our OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR training program is designed as a Group Learning Experience. This means teachers from more than one setting can attend our training sessions together at the same time. Or you can split them into subgroups. If you own/manage/consult more than one setting, each setting can participate in this program separately under the supervision of managers or other designated facilitators. However, from this webpage directly you can purchase a single setting license only (with up to 10 teachers). If you have more than one setting, or you want to train more than 10 teachers, please contact us for a special offer at info @ naturalbornleaders.org
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If this program is available online, why do I need a training facilitator?
Yes, our OUTDOOR LEARNING ACTIVATOR training program is available online. However, since the entire training content has been optimised as a Group Learning Experience to maximise the impact, accelerate the learning outcomes, and promote unified work and care standards, it's highly recommended that all teachers participate in our training sessions together at the same time. To manage the group learning process you will need to designate one person (this can be a setting manager or senior teachers) who will supervise the training program, set the dates and place for the training sessions, play the video content, distribute downloadable resources, facilitate discussions and monitor progress making sure all the practical tasks and projects have been completed by all teachers. The facilitator doesn't need to do any special preparations or have facilitation experience - they will receive detail instructions and guidelines as part of this training program.
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Our teachers prefer not to get involved in any professional duties after working hours - will they need to study your training content on their own at home?
All training content of OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR Transformation Program is mobile optimised and is fully accessible on mobile phones. However, unlike most offers on the market, our training program is not a DIY e-learning course. Since it’s a group learning process which will be facilitated on setting premises during teachers’ working hours or on designated days, setting managers or facilitators will be required to arrange a specific time and place for teachers to gather together for their training sessions.
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How long will we have access to your training content?
OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR training program has been designed to be completed within 1-2 months. From the date you buy the program, you will have 2+1 months of access to our training content. This is to motivate your managers and your staff to follow the training process as we have designed it, and not to prolong it too much. Hence one extra month.
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Are you planning to update your training content periodically?
The core training content of OUTDOOR EDUCATION ACTIVATOR program will most likely stay as it is now (with minor amendments here and there). However, for those who will wish to acquire more in-depth knowledge and experience we offer a comprehensive training program MASTER TEACHER Preschool Transformation Teacher Training that focuses in depth on all areas of early years education, offers full transformation of early years provision and equips teachers with the most effective educational approaches.
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Do teachers need to buy special educational resources, toys or equipment to implement your training?
All our trainings leave teachers tool-independent and self-reliant. This means no special investment in educational resources is required. In fact, we share how teachers can use whatever is available locally and how to work with simple resources, how to create them on their own without having to invest and rely on external tools. We advise what resources are worth investing if teachers or setting wish and have funds to invest in to make sure the investment is necessary or effective.
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How can I become your representative or your course facilitator for my country or region?
We are always excited to partner with ambitious and passionate educators who are ready and willing to make a change to empower teachers and children in their region. Please contact us on info (at) naturalbornleaders.org to enquire about collaboration details.
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Can I benefit from the course if I don't have a group to learn with?
To maximise impact we designed the training to be a group experience so teacher can support each other and exchange experience. However, if you do not have a group to learn with or prefer individual work then you will still immensely benefit from the course when doing the training on your own. The whole experience is very practical and you will be asked to implement strategies, complete practical tasks in your setting. The programme is packed with case studies, self-reflection tasks that can be completed individually if preferred. It's a very powerful training that will leave you with the most effective approaches and tools for life. This definitely makes it worth doing it on your own if you are motivated to offer Outdoor Education at its best.
About Natural Born Leaders
Magdalena Matulewicz & Witold Matulewicz
- Experienced Teacher Trainers, Curriculum Developers and Course Designers
- UK-certified Assessors-Evaluators in Child Care Learning Development and Play (CCLD and School Playwork)
- Early Years Professional Status Assessors (EYPS) - responsible for assessing the quality of Early Years and Early Childhood provisions in the UK and training Early Years Professionals
- World Schooling Parents
Our Story
We’ve always believed that the role of an educator is to empower every child, to celebrate them for their gifts and uniqueness, to help them discover their talents and to offer them the most enabling environments to learn to their full potential. However, we grew up in Eastern Europe where discipline, labels and outdated teaching approaches were our reality and this left it's mark on our lives and self-image. Our natural talents were considered a "burden" and we grew up believing we were doomed to fail. This is the very reason we promised ourselves to make a real change in the way early years education is offered to all children around the world.
When we started our teaching career we knew we were able to work completely differently to 98% of other teachers - because we could see the world through the eyes of the child.
We had already been working along the principles of Personalised and Experiential Learning, but we constantly met people telling us that it was not possible to achieve any results without structured teaching, without rigid frameworks, discipline, testing and the same uniform goals for all children. We knew it wasn't true!
They would tell us we were dreamers.
One September night we made a bold decision that changed our lives forever. We left our country and decided to learn from the best. Cut the story short, we owned and managed one of the most challenging business - our own multilingual early childhood education provision.
And we did this in one of the most effective and at the same time the most demanding countries in the world - the United Kingdom - where a mistake can cost you losing your business, and where an unexpected inspection may appear at your setting at any time.
Our skills and insights were recognised and we were invited to work with prestigious educational institutions to deliver training to other early years education providers, and to inspect their provision to make sure they met the requirements of the British National Standards - the EYFS.
We were even featured in the Guardian as the ones who can potentially introduce major changes in education in the UK.
- We worked as assessors and evaluators in a few governmental projects such as the Early Years Professional Status (EYPS), National Vocational Qualifications in Child Care Learning and Development (CCLD), and National Vocational Qualifications in School Playwork.
- We collaborated with the biggest and the most respected Higher Education institutions in the country such as the Tribal Group, Kingston University, the JGA Group, and Canterbury Christ Church University.
- During the past 10 years we have inspected and assessed over 100 Early Childhood provisions - many of them represented the highest standards in education, whereas many were still far from it.
- We have travelled across and lived in 30 different countries where we've made friends with locals, lived their lifestyle, participated in their local customs, events and gatherings. We've visited local playgrounds, museums, children-dedicated places, nurseries and schools. We've talked to teachers, parents, children, and visionaries. We've experienced, tested, observed, compared, contrasted, evaluated, and enjoyed local infrastructure, parks, public spaces for families and children. We've seen the best and not so great. After all these years of living in the world education holds no secrets for us.
- We've been world schooling our son for 14 years non-stop. He's never been to school but he's been learning from the world all his life with great success. We have a deep understanding of Formal Education, Home Schooling, and Personalised Learning. We've experienced how children can flourish on both paths and what it takes to "get it right" for them.
- Our professional insights combined with life experience give us a unique Global Perspective. We know what all children have in common, no matter the location. We also understand the local perspective of educators and what they need in order to be able to offer the same highest quality of Early Childhood Education and Care.
The Secret Ingredient
After all these years we can confidently say that we know the secret of the world class Early Years provision - the one that can successfully nurture children’s natural leadership mindset and offer full potential learning.
The most successful settings are doing certain things the same way. They follow exactly the same procedures, they have the same systems in place, they share the same values.
We’ve put our experience and knowledge together, we've boiled it down, and we’ve created a series of powerful teacher training programs that incorporate all key ingredients that guarantee the learning processes are highly personalised for every child, and that each child is celebrated for their uniqueness and that teachers work according to the most effective approaches that ever existed. This in turn serves as a very strong foundation for nurturing children’s natural Leadership Mindset.
If you decide to join ACTIVE LEARNING BOOSTER ™ we will show you how to implement the most advanced and the most effective educational approaches that ever existed in the history of Education!