2020: Our First Year
Promising Start, Pandemic Challenges & Happy Young People
A vision for accessible education
Rama Life was created by Jenn Hodge, on Christmas Day 2019. The initial spark of an idea was to create an accessible education provision that valued all types of intelligence equally, incorporated all learning styles and has an emphasis on being outdoors. After six months of breawing the ‘spark’ formed into a “first step”. Within 6 weeks, a trial holiday club run for three days, with around 10 young people attending, aged 8-12yrs.
Global Pandemic
Following the success of the February provision, plans for Easter began and more word of mouth spread. Families were asking if under 8’s could join so Rama began to explore Ofsted registration and investigate how an ongoing provision might look. This was all halted when it became obvious that everyone had bigger things to worry about with the outbreak of Covid-19. Although with two other volunteers, Jenn founded a Community Support Team for her local area and dedicated months of her time to project managing the scheme ,ensuring the community had food, prescriptions and mental health support. This included setting up and managing a team of over 100 volunteers and a dedicated phone line.
As part of her Covid Project Managing role, Jenn had to keep a very close eye on legislation and changes to guidence. When it became evident that many people would be working over the summer months, Jenn made a brave decision to recruit staff and plan for a holiday club – in the hope that the government would eventually confirm that the provision could run. The news came at the eleventh hour and the summer holiday club went ahead, albeit working within certain restrictions and following guidence.
Reaching all young people
As the summer drew to a close, Jenn started planning for the next holiday period and her attention turned to the next phase of Rama Life… term-time provision. Starting with a full day Junior and Senior group, both with a half-day option, the groups offered a mix of skill based activities, active games and social time.
The groups had a positive response and we made the decision to relocate to a more comfortable hall, that gave us a dedicated space with lots of storage.
2021 Year Two:
Community Transport, Establishing Groups & School Support
Establishing Home Education Provision
Despite having to stop running groups between January and April 2021 due to the Pandemic, our home education provisions continued to grow. In addition to our Junior and Senior groups, we introduced an outdoor learning group for families and a outdoor toddler group. This was a time of learning and honing of our provisions. In the summer of 2021 we ran our first residential, with a heavy focus on outdoors. Young people from our teen group enjoyed a weekend at Pinkery Point on Dartmoor in the UK where they took part in a low ropes course, sharps archery and giant tree climbing (with harnesses and hardhats!).
Community Transport
Coming Soon
School Support
Coming Soon
2022 Year Three
Academic Groups, The Farm and Community Power
Academic Groups
In September 2022 we began the first of our academic groups, Key Stage 3 Maths and Science. The classes were run at a heavily subsidised rate, to trial our model and assess if there was a need for the provisions. Run by a qualified science teacher and qualified maths tutor, they were run on the basis of a small group, learning in a hands on way with accessible way.
The Farm
Watergore Farm (sometimes referred to as Phoenix) was Rama Life’s dedicated site, where we run most of our activities and groups for a year. It was a beautiful site that housed a grade two listed farmhouse, various outbuildings and sheds and a large green space.
Since being gifted use of the site in the spring of 2022, we worked hard and put in a lot of energy and love to the site and built a community of people who wanted to bring it fully back to life. We investigated purchasing the site and were keen to return it to it’s former glory both ecologically and in terms of its heritage. The whole process would align with our educational and community ethos, ensuring that young people would benefit from being part of an enriching, real life, learning oppertunity.
After initial funding applications and in depth discussions with various professionals and local community members, the decision was taken not pursue the purchase – influenced by potential future highways work on the A303.
Community Groups
Whilst resident at the Farm, we ran an “Outdoor Families” group and an “Outdoor Toddlers” group. Both groups were enjoyed by a range of families and were particularly succesful for neurodivergent young people who benefited from the space available to play and roam. Families enjoyed crafts, playing in our mud kitchen and being part of a supportive group environment. Discussions around the campfire helped build confidence in young people and a sense of community for the adults.
2023 Year Four
Developing Our Team, Our Groups and School Provision
Developing Team
Moving away from youth leaders to a majority teaching staff was a pivotal decision and one that has allowed the business to grow and develop. At the end of 2022 we began the process of exapanding our back office team and into 2023, we
Developing Groups
Since being gifted use of the site in the spring of 2022, we worked hard and built a community of people who wanted to bring the farm back to life. We investigated purchasing the site and were keen to return it to it’s former glory both ecologically and in terms of its heritage. The whole process would align with our educational and community ethos, ensuring that young people would benefit from being part of an enriching, real life, learning oppertunity.
After initial funding applications and in depth discussions with various professionals and local community members, the decision was taken not pursue the purchase – influenced by the potential highways work on the A303.
After making this decision we moved our term-time provision to Frogmary Farm and two community spaces in the beautiful nearby village of Merriott. In September 2023, we launched our widest range of term-time groups including: Life Skills, Skills and Social, English, Science and three Maths provisions. This co-incided with our decision to subsidise our rates for young people in school, without funding from an EHCP. This makes us the only truly affordable alternative provision in the country, that we are aware of.
Developing School Provision
During this period, young people developed a range of skills and enjoyed the huge space available and the ability to connect with nature through both wildlife and gardening. Our KS3 Maths and English group ran from our outdoor classroom and young people cooked everything from brownies in a dutch oven to spaghetti bolognese and soup.
Phoenix – about the name.
Sometimes it can feel like there is no possibility of change or development within ourselves or our situation, or that we have made choices that we feel we cannot move on from.
The Phoenix bird is associated with the idea of regeneration, reminding us that we can experience adversity or feelings of failure and rise up, make changes and move forward. This also applies to the farm itself, which was ripe for regrowth and becoming a beautiful space, full of life and learning.
Rama Life promotes lifelong learning, self-development, self-reflection and that every ‘failure’ is an opportunity for progression.
Art & Crafts
Games & Sports
Cooking Over a Fire
