Free We Grow provides a space for home educated children to be able to spend time in community, in a natural setting, learning how to share space, make decisions together, care for each other and their local environment, and self direct their learning. It’s a unique offering in South London, serving a diverse group of home educating families.
At Free We Grow we are committed to ensuring that our space is accessible to any family regardless of financial means. We believe that money should not be a barrier to access.
People choose to home educate for a variety of reasons, and home educating families form a heterogenous group. Families may choose to home educate for philosophical and ideological reasons, because their child is unhappy at school, or because of a sense that their child’s special needs are not met at school. Mostly when valuing happiness and wellbeing, many feel like it’s not much of a choice.
However, currently there is no funding for home educating families. This means that extra costs associated with home education have to be borne by the family, which makes the option difficult for those with lower financial means to access.
The Free We Grow community Fund is a fund that supports us to ensure that the project remains accessible to any family who shares our values and vision and would like to join our community. When we opened in 2017, we made a commitment never to turn anyone away for financial reasons. This has worked out over the years, with some families contributing to the community fund according to means, and thanks to our innovative procurement policy which keeps our costs down!
Our Community Fund consists of gifts received from families, friends and organisations who support our project. We’re playing, exploring and experimenting with what gift culture might look like in our lives.
To donate directly to our community fund, you can make a transfer Free We Grow Ltd, Sort Code: 51-50-02, Account: 65220560, or please email gather@freewegrow.co.uk to speak to one of our holding team members about ways to support.
