Punk Caterpillar: Bush School

Children are curious and we learn through taking risks and through our mistakes.  We are here to catch stories and facilitate the kinds of experiences that create core memories and develop skills of confidence, awareness and curiosity in the nature. Through the care and planning and the absolute openness to emergent, child led and explorative activities, we are building programs built on passion and play with nature connection at the core. We trust our kids and our mentors to follow their innate and wild wisdom, skill share and create together. We are a place where everyone has the opportunity to be themselves.

Community

Punk Caterpillar is also about relationships.  Our relationship to self, other, the unseen and the more that human world.

Our community includes everyone who has been a part of Punk Caterpillar over the years,  once you are a part of the PUNKY CREW you're in for life.  We are Village Building and creating a space for belonging, growing alongside children of different ages. Our weekly programs are kid centred but we also hold seasonal celebration events where everyone is invited to share food, fire, celebration together making space for the adults to come play too. We also hold an annual Summer PUNK CATERPILLAR CAMPOUT that is also open to ALL AGES and draws in people from other place too.

We want to cultivate a culture where everyone has something to offer and everyone feels welcome.

Our community is guided by three agreements:

Learning through living

We don't have a rigid curriculum that tells children exactly what they should be doing every minute. Instead, we create rich environments and opportunities for children to  explore, experiment and follow their own curiosity. All our skills and craft based activities which we offer each week are opt in, same with our games and adventures. We begin and end with and opening and closing circle acknowledging Country, the directions, elements, the more than human world and each other.

  There is space to engage with the mentors and the space in the way the feels resonant to each individual. We share food, learn about tools, plants and each other.

 Learning isn't measured, it is embodied and felt. It goes beyond the mind.  

It isn't always easy to describe what is happening, especially when we are so used to rigid models of learning based on measured outcomes.  We are doing something different here. We are doing something here that includes developing a sense of true inner knowing and choice, learning to take calculated risks and make assessments in real time and developing relationships with place, people and the more-than-human world.    There is much happening here that does not meet the eye, it's woven in rather that imposed on their experience. The outcomes are a long game, here we are seeding and developing the attributes of connection.

Risk, freedom and capability

We believe children need opportunities to experience real, manageable risk.

Things like climbing, scrambling, balancing and exploring wild and natural landscapes. Learning and using tools like carving knives, hatchets and saws. Making fires and learning how to cook with fire, make herbal medicines and natural dying building a relationship with the fire through these processes.  We are building awareness and capability through our games, adventures, communication and experiences of knowing one place.

These experiences ask children to pay attention, assess situations, make decisions and discover their own capabilities.

Our role is not to remove every risk it is to create environments where children can encounter challenge with appropriate support, develop judgement and gradually become more capable and confident in themselves.

Connection to nature

Punk Caterpillar is deeply rooted in the natural world.

We notice the seasons. We learn the plants and animals around us. We work with natural materials. We cook over fire. We watch the weather and aknowlege the directions and make note of which moon phase we are in.  We learn what the land is offering us at different times of year,  we tend and plant when we can.

Nature isn't something we visit for an hour before returning to the “real” learning. It's where so much of our learning emerges.

And through spending time in relationship with the natural world, we hope children develop a sense of care, wonder and belonging that stays with them.