LEARNING APPROACH
Ready for School Is Just the Beginning
Let Them Be Little. Watch Them Grow Big.
At Tree House Friends, our mission is straightforward: help your child grow up healthy, confident, and thriving — inside and out.
We take a balanced approach to early learning that goes beyond school readiness. Through outdoor, nature-based play in the woods of Trent Park, your child develops resilience, emotional intelligence, and the essential skills that matter long after they leave us — problem-solving, creativity, empathy, and the confidence to try things for themselves.
The woodland is where this happens best. It's where laughter carries through the trees, big feelings are explored safely, and lasting memories are made in muddy boots and wide-eyed wonder. There's no artificial environment that comes close.
By the time your child moves on from Tree House Friends, they don't just know how to solve problems — they know how to spot them. They don't just follow instructions — they think for themselves. They don't just get along with others — they genuinely understand them. That's not just preparation for school. That's preparation for life.
Styles of Learning
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CHILD LED PLAY
Child-initiated and then teachers facilitate learning by scaffolding play, to extend learning opportunities. This includes a variety of games and our adventure walks in nature.
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TEACHER LED
Teacher designed and controlled which include circle times, preschool sessions, and forest school activities (camp fires, sawing, whittling etc)
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FREE PLAY
Initiated by the child where teachers observe their play uninterrupted, giving them time and space to be. Children can Interact with different curated areas in camp: reading, mud kitchen, digging, obstacle course. arts & crafts, loose parts, tree climbing)
Our Approach: Let Curiosity Lead the Way
At Tree House Friends, learning starts with curiosity and grows through play — exactly as it should at this age. Based entirely outdoors in the woods of Trent Park, our child-led approach follows the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework, guided by Ofsted. But we deliver it in a way that feels anything but classroom — it's wild, free, and full of joy.
We focus on what your child can do, not what they can't. Instead of telling children what to think, we give them the confidence and space to figure out how to think. That shift matters. It's how real independence, resilience, and emotional intelligence take root — skills that carry them far beyond nursery.
Through nature-based play, your child learns to take healthy risks, solve problems, and trust themselves. They climb, build, explore, and discover — not wrapped in cotton wool, but growing in self-belief. That's what prepares them for school and for life
Not One Method. The Right Method for Your Child.
Our approach draws from the world's most respected early years philosophies — Froebel, Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Steiner, and Forest School. We don't follow one method rigidly. Instead, we take the strongest ideas from each and blend them to suit your child's own pace, imagination, and curiosity.
The Big Forest at Trent Park is our classroom — an open-ended setting rich with natural materials, sensory experiences, and endless possibilities for creative play. Rooted in Forest School principles, everything is designed to let children lead with the curiosity they're already born with, rather than fitting them into a fixed curriculum.
Our ratios reflect how seriously we take this 1-4 . With one educator to every four children your child gets genuine, focused attention — not crowd management. We also mix ages deliberately. Younger children watch and learn from older ones; older children build confidence, empathy, and leadership by guiding those coming up behind them. It's how social skills, cognitive flexibility, and emotional maturity develop naturally — through real relationships, not worksheets.