We created BEA because…

  • Education in nature is best for human health and the health of the planet;
  • It reduces the “nature deficit” in children and families;
  • It promotes connection with instinct, intuition and nature itself. Cultivates the wild side, understood as something organic and natural;
  • It sees nature as a model for our own lives, observing and learning from a respectful and curious experience;
  • It stimulates critical sense, valuing the individuality and identity of each child in their thinking and personality;
  • The child is the protagonist of its own learning – which it does through experience, using the body as a whole.
  • The relationship between child and carer is the privileged bond, in an individualised accompaniment of each process;
  • It deals with values beyond those of the material world;
  • Respects and educates for resilience. 
  • It promotes food awareness and food sovereignty;
  • It cares for the land, it cares for people, it cares for the future and it shares, in line with the principles of permaculture.
  • It integrates the importance of silence, stillness and observation.

The pillars of BEA are:

  • Forest School
    • BEA takes place in a space that combines the forest, in its natural, wild and free aspect; with the farm and the permaculture principles: Caring for the land, caring for people and caring for the future. The shelters, in this context of nature, are understood, not only as a physical refuge, a place of warmth, points of arrival and departure; but also as a place of cosiness, safety and protection of affections.
  • Free play
    • Flow learning and walking are the guiding threads of discovery of nature and the learning that comes from observing, feeling, smelling, tasting, doing, thinking and questioning.
  • Conscious and respectful support
    • Adults look at the child in its individuality making the school invisible and leaning on nature as teacher.
  • Community
    • Bosque Escola Avelãs is a project that dreams of being free, free of charge, and that always remakes itself from the community to the community.