Hollie's story

Co-Founder of Alfresco Learning

My favourite part of running this company is knowing that everything we do, is going to help children find more joy in their education.

Hello I’m Hollie and I’m so glad to meet you here, I’m one of the Co-Founders of Alfresco Learning. Over the last 4 years I’ve been taking my passion for nature connection & wellbeing and combining it with my teaching practise to help create Alfresco Learning.

My big motivator is supporting young children who struggle with formal learning in the classroom.

I believe that our education system could do a better job of supporting these young children by teaching them in a way that is naturally more engaging to them.

Throughout my teaching career I dabbled with provision in KS1 but always found the constraints around resourcing, staffing and balancing the curriculum input difficult to achieve. Once I tried curriculum outdoor learning I knew I had dropped onto something special. My classes were engaged again, I didn’t need to worry about curriculum coverage as every outdoor lesson was covering our key objectives and I found a new way to apply my creative thinking to the classroom. I’ve never been someone who can just go through the day to day grind, I need spark, creativity and joy to keep me motivated. So finding new ways to combine the curriculum with nature provided just this!

For me our biggest highlight so far has been last year's impact report; finding out that a combination of our Planning Hub, children’s workshops & staff training helped an estimated 26,000 children enjoy their learning outdoors was a phenomenal success.

I will never tire of sharing our message about the impact of outdoor learning and I have big ambitions for us to take this to a Government level one day. My vision is for us to influence the education system so that outdoor learning becomes a part of everyday teaching and learning for Primary Schools up and down the UK.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story,

if any of it resonated with you please be sure to reach out to us. You can DM us on our social media pages, I love to hear from other educators interested in the benefits of outdoor learning.

Hollie's story

Co-Founder of Alfresco Learning

My big motivator is supporting young children who struggle with formal learning in the classroom.

Since then it has been one big leap of faith to leave the classroom, join forces with Jenny, turn down the prospect of progressing my career and to share this new found approach with teachers everywhere. 4 years on and we are growing strong!

For me our biggest highlight so far has been last year's impact report; finding out that a combination of our Planning Hub, children’s workshops & staff training helped an estimated 26,000 children enjoy their learning outdoors was a phenomenal success.

Since then it has been one big leap of faith to leave the classroom, join forces with Jenny, turn down the prospect of progressing my career and to share this new found approach with teachers everywhere.

4 years on and we are growing strong!