Cumbria's first self-directed Learning Community!

Aim: Can you help us create a space where Young People can follow their passions and be part of an empowering learning community?

Who are we?

We are Fell Kin CIC - a group of parents united by the desire to create a drop-off community space for 11yrs+ home educated children.

Collectively our founding team have decades of experience in facilitating youth spaces, recognising and nurturing differing needs, managing businesses, running events and making things happen.

We met through the work of Stomping Ground CIC. Stomping Ground has been holding curiosity-led community spaces across Cumbria for 15 years and working with the home educating community for the last 5 years.

What are we doing?

We are creating this space because many in our community, including our own children, have learning styles and neuro-profiles which would make a mainstream education setting challenging, or even impossible.

We want to bring consent-based, self-directed, curiosity-led learning to the South Lakes, to demonstrate how this trailblazing approach can work and to inspire others to embrace these principles. 

We recognise that autonomous, self-directed learning leads to high levels of intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, confidence, resilience and ultimately, good mental health.

We have called this vision Fell Kin - a close friendship community nestled in the fells of the Lakes. We are starting small and will be open 2 days/week in Staveley, Kendal, for 11-16year olds.

For a deeper dive into our guiding principles please see https://fellkin.org.uk/our-guiding-principles/

Why are we asking for your help?

We have legal hoops to jump through, insurance to pay for, specialist self-directed education training, admin and finance systems to build, and policies to write, and safety checks to do.  We are starting small, volunteering our time to set this up, but there are still costs before we can even open the doors.

Can you help us create this space where children can be their authentic selves? 

Every little helps and we have put in some tasty rewards to thank you for your support!

Thank you!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 7th September 2025 at 5:56pm