Join us for the highlight of our year! The Freedom to Learn Forum is an annual festival celebrating our growing movement here in the UK. We are an emerging network of young people, families, educators and educational spaces and we believe that learning happens best when children and young people have a voice and choice in their education.

Share in the experiences, learning, joy, challenges and solutions to creating spaces where children and young people learn together by simply being together.

Hosted this year at Braziers Park, an intentional community which for 70 years has been experimenting with living and learning together, the Phoenix Education Trust organising team welcomes you to a beautiful bank holiday weekend of open-space workshops, gatherings, playing, eating, camping and being yourself in the stunning surroundings of Braziers Park.

Unlikely to resemble any other conferences you've been to before, the Freedom to Learn Forum is an open-space arena in which adults and children co-create the schedule. Anyone can host a talk, workshop, or game on any theme they are passionate about, allowing us to share our knowledge, experience, and ideas.

Watch the video from last year: click here or click on the picture below.

Organisers Aims

• That we all 'come home' and feel supported and inspired by knowing that there are others who share our vision for education transformation and a fairer, freer, more equal world.

• That all of us, as participants at the forum, feel free to be whoever we want to be, offer what we want to offer, join in what we want to join, and that there are no barriers to getting involved with anything.

• That no-one feels prejudiced against at the forum, and that we feel like a cohesive, caring and collaborative community.

• That we all leave with new relationships and connections and the sense of belonging to a stronger network here in the UK.

• That we leave feeling inspired by the range of exciting approaches around the UK that promote and embody 'freedom to learn'.

• That education in this country improves thanks to our collective efforts and that we can be confident of co-creating a future in which every child has much more voice and choice in their education.

Phoenix will be hosting a ‘visioning meeting’ at their offices in London during May, to invite your input on this list of aims, and to discuss how we might achieve this effect at the forum.

Who will be at the Forum?

You (hopefully)! We welcome everybody who gets the sense that this forum is for them. It is a co-created and inclusive community of people who share some similar values and visions for a more fair, free and equal education and society.

You might be:

• A child or a young person

• A member of a parent-led childcare coop project

• A teacher in a secondary school

• A retired university lecturer

• An up and coming academic researcher

• A home-educating family

• A youth worker

• An occupational therapist keen to move into education

• A child psychologist

• An armchair philosopher

• A person with passion and energy but no sense of purpose at the moment

• A person who likes to be part of a community

• A yoga practitioner who would like to see more yoga in schools

• A person who likes camping, and knows some other people that are going

• A founder of a democratic learning community

• An administrator at a democratic school

• An international speaker

• An Ofsted inspector

• An aspiring government minister

• A pub landlord thinking about turning the building into a nursery school

• A primary school headteacher

• Something other not on this list! Welcome!

What will actually happen at the forum?!

The short, and true answer is: whatever you want to happen can happen. It’s a democratic event co-created by all the attendees. Here’s an example of what you might do when you arrive at the Forum on Friday 23rd August:

• At registration, you will receive maps and some practical information

• Then you will probably pitch your tent, in a circle with some other campers

• Then you might find the compost loos, the wood-burning showers and the food place

• Perhaps someone will throw a frisbee to you, and you might decide to join in a game

• At some point, you could wander over to the info tent, and look at the Workshop Board: you will see a list of workshop spaces along the side and a list of times on the top. In-between are some cards with information on them, and some blank cards for you to write on….

  • One of the cards might say: What are ‘Democratic Schools’? An introduction from a democratic school teacher.

  • Another might say: ‘Carl Rogers: a discussion about the man who wrote the book Freedom to Learn. All welcome’

  • Another one might say: ‘Building a Spaghetti Parliament: mainly for children’

  • You can choose to go to one of these workshops or none of them. You could go to the beginning of one workshop and then leave after 10 minutes if you don’t feel like you’re contributing or gaining anything.

• You might wander back to the campsite, and on the way get chatting to someone you’ve never met before about different ideas about the afterlife and how it is to live in a residential community

• By the time you get back, it’s almost dinner time. You arrive to find locally sourced, tasty curry and several salad options and sit down at a table with some friends and some strangers. You wash up your own plate afterwards

• Back at the campsite, some children and adults have started a fire together, and someone is strumming a guitar. You think about singing along but then decide to just be quiet for a bit and listen

• Later, someone invites you to a film screening: a documentary about Braziers Park. You grab a blanket and settle down on a sofa to watch the film

• You get involved with a really long conversation afterwards and go to bed when you feel like it!

• As you’re falling asleep you think about a workshop you might offer the next day: ‘how to create an atmosphere like this Forum where everyone feels okay to be themselves?’

So is this a forum, a conference or a festival?

Well... we use all three words to describe the event, just to confuse you! In fact, it's all of these things, and also not really any of these things. it's a forum to gather together and inspire each other; it's a conference because we are sharing ideas through workshops, and it's a festival because it's a lot of fun, and there will be much merriment, music, dancing and games. But it's also probably unlike any forum, conference or festival you've ever been to before!

General Information & FAQs

Camping

This is a camping conference! Everyone is encouraged to form circles on a large meadow, in their tents, yurts or under the stars if you prefer! All campers will have access to wood-fired, warm showers and ecological compost toilets.

If you have particular access requirements please let us know in your ticket registration form (we will make sure everyone is able to be comfortable at the Forum). There are a few beds indoors, on the first floor of the house, which we can provide to attendees who really, really don't like camping, for a negotiable suggested donation. Get in touch if you want to talk about that.

Although we encourage attendees to stay on site and be part of the community we're building together, there are a range of hotels and B&Bs in the nearby towns of Goring and Wallingford, if camping really isn't your thing. Contact us for a list.

Meals

The following meals will be included in the cost of tickets:

Friday: Dinner

Saturday: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Sunday: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Monday: Breakfast and lunch

Getting here

We encourage people to come by public transport; it's very easy to get to Braziers by bus from Oxford and Reading.

Alternatively, please consider car-pooling. August is harvest time at the local farms and having too many people arriving by car will mean complications on the road, competing against combine harvesters and tractors down narrow lanes. Besides, it's also better for the planet if we use public transport! There will be limited parking available on site. Please indicate on your ticket registration form if you are planning to come by car, so our team can manage that effectively.

The nearest train station is Goring & Streatley, a 10 minute taxi ride from Braziers Park.

There is an hourly bus service back and forward between Oxford and Reading that stops at Braziers Park Turn, a 5-10 minute walk from the estate. It does not run on Sundays or Bank Holidays.

Tickets

We have tried to organise the tickets to be as flexible and as cheap as possible. The 'Full Festival' tickets are inclusive of meals, a camping pitch, and access to all workshops. You don't need to bring your paper ticket with you, as your name will be on our attendance list if you have registered and paid here on eventbrite.

There are 50 additional day tickets per day on Saturday and Sunday. To strengthen the sense of community, the majority of tickets are for people attending for the whole event.

Group tickets and bursary tickets are discussed below.

Workshops

This is an open-space forum, and anyone can host a workshop or offer a presentation on any topic. A workshop or presentation is allocated a one-hour slot, and will take 45 minutes, so that there is time for attendees to have breaks in-between sessions. If you require two slots for your chosen topic, you may select this. If you would like your workshop or presentation details to be included in promotional materials in advance of the event, please provide information when you complete the order form. The organisers may be selective about the events they pre-book, to ensure there is a diversity of perspectives included. If your information doesn't appear in promotional materials, please know that you will be able to promote your event at the festival itself.

What childcare will there be at the forum?

Rather than having a formalised childcare space, we invite families with children to negotiate their own way of doing things at the forum. Some children might want to play in the outdoor adventure playground area, or roll down the hill, or try out a treasure hunt to explore the site. Some children might want to hang out with parents while their parents are chatting with friends or going to a workshop.

We will recruit 6 child-centred volunteers, however, who will receive a free ticket in return for offering at least 6 hours of workshops during the weekend that are specifically aimed at children. This means that there will be at least 36 hours of activities exclusively for children during the weekend. The volunteers will indicate the most relevant age groups that they are expecting to come to workshops and whether it’s best for parents to join in or not.

Children remain the responsibility of accompanying adults throughout the weekend. In addition, Phoenix will provide some training, supervision, DBS checks, safeguarding and risk assessments to support the welfare of all participants at the festival.

Volunteering

This event isn't possible without our amazing team of volunteers. We need:

• 2 volunteers to help with promotion and administration in the months leading up to the event.

• 7 volunteers to help with the set-up on site, for a couple of days before the event begins and one day afterwards to clear the site.

• 6 childcare volunteers, to offer between 4 - 6 hours of workshops specifically for children at the festival.

All volunteers will get a free ticket for the whole festival, with a bed on site. If you're interested in getting involved, please contact: freedomtolearnforum@gmail.com.

All volunteers will be involved with managing the site during the event, being an ambassador and a helping hand to attendees.

All volunteers will be required to either provide details of a 'live' DBS check, or to undertake an Enhanced DBS check with Phoenix, free of charge, before the event. Childcare volunteers will need to arrive on Friday morning, to participate in a workshop about safe and fun management of childcare provision.

Bursaries

We are able to offer a limited number of bursaries to reduce the costs for attendees who may be experiencing financial hardship. These bursaries are made possible thanks to the generosity of the Meadowbrook Trust, and the Raymond Williams Foundation. If you are interested in applying for a bursary, please email danny@phoenixeducation.co.uk to request an application form.

Groups

If you have a group of 10 or more adults wishing to attend the Forum together, we can provide a 25% discount on the overall ticket fee. Please contact danny@phoenixeducation.co.uk to discuss your group's requirements, or if your group of 10 adults wishes to bring children with them.

What to bring?

• Your good selves, your ideas and enthusiasm

• All the things you'd normally bring camping (e.g. a tent, bedding, towel etc.)

More details about specific items to bring and things to be aware of will be sent to attendees in the weeks leading up to the event.

Contact the organiser

Any questions regarding the event, please contact: freedomtolearnforum@gmail.com.