I’m the headteacher of a £17k-a-year college… our college students do a four-day week, lessons are taught in tents and we’re NOT graded by Ofsted – and here is why it really works

The headteacher of an independent school which has cut classes to four days a week, moved lessons to outdoor tents outside and allows pupils to address teachers by their first names has insisted her methods are not woke or ‘wishy washy’.

Liberty Woodland School in Morden, south London, which has children aged four to 16, is taking a new approach to the traditional timetable, claiming the move is to respond to concerns about mental health.

Instead of a five-day school week starting at 8.30am and finishing at 3pm, the school days are longer, starting at 8.30am and finishing at 4.40pm. Pupils have a day off on Friday but teachers are expected to work on lesson plans, marking and supporting any students with outstanding work.

Liberty Woodland opened as a primary school in 2019 and five years later began taking in secondary students.

Fees are set to rise to around £7,000 per term from January after Labour ended the VAT exemption for private schools.

Lessons take place outside in yurt-style tents around the three-acre site – even when it is cold or raining – and teachers and students are on first-name terms with each other. 

Founder Leanna Barrett told MailOnline she doesn’t mind if students play video games instead of being at school on a Friday and revealed that rather than detentions, children are asked to ‘regulate their own behavior’.

The head told MailOnline: ‘It is not all wishy-washy, so much of what we do is routed in scientific research and in science, we know it works.’ 

Children at the school also eat mostly vegetarian lunches and the headteacher said some of the eight to 10-year-olds have already started studying GCSE level geography.

Liberty Woodland is not assessed by Ofsted, but instead inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), a government approved inspectorate.  

A recent report by the ISI gave glowing praise to the school, including how teachers prioritise mental and physical health.

However the report did question the lack of extra-curricular activities available to pupils on Fridays, when they are usually at home. 

The report said: ‘Pupils develop the skills and attitudes to help them become inquiring, independent and kind global citizens who are emotionally intelligent, socially responsible and innovative problem solvers.’

Pupils at the school do not study the national curriculum and instead follow the International Baccalaureate, which is taught in 108 countries around the world and is accredited by Ofqual as having the same status as GCSEs.

The school’s website has criticised traditional exams, saying GCSEs ‘develop a hollow understanding of any subject and comes at the expense of a rich, highly engaging and deep learning experience’. 

The primary curriculum is split into three ‘key areas of competence’ which they believe are important for all students to develop. They liken them to the structure of a tree, naming them the Roots, Trunk and Crown.

Root attributes, the school says are ‘fundamental to all other learning’ and prioritises personal, social, emotional and physical health.

The Trunk attributes are the area the schools believes are ‘essential skills’ for the primary pupils, giving Environmentalism same level of importance as maths.

Other essential skills listed in Trunk include Communication and Language, Critical thinking and Digital Communication.

Then the Crown attributes are designed to give pupils the ‘capacity to become the adults that will shape the future,’ enabling students to ‘not just participate, but flourish in society’.

The Crown attributes lists Philosophical Reflection and Social Responsibility alongside Creative Arts (Music, Art, Drama and Technology), Understanding the World (Geography, History and Science).

A 14-year-old pupil who was previously at a mainstream secondary school said studying at Liberty Woodland has improved his mental health.

He said he enjoys having Fridays at home and loves the four-day working week.

Another student, 11, told The Guardian: ‘Most people do their work in the morning (Friday). You can do it on Saturday or Sunday, sometimes I play video games with friends.’

Liberty Woodland claims to be the first fully outdoor school in the UK and says its three-acre campus provides ‘perfect backdrop for immersive outdoor learning experiences’.   

Founder Leanna Barrett previously ran a chain of forest nurseries before starting Liberty Woodland.

She says that while the school is only operating in a four-day working week, the longer days mean pupils are still studying the same amount as regular schools.

She told MailOnline: ‘We are giving kids the time in school to really get into the flow and they have a better work-life balance, so they can spend time focusing on their hobbies and passions as well as family time.

‘Our teachers are able to come in on a Friday and develop high quality excellent lessons and then they finish at lunchtime and they too have a better work-life balance. 

Mrs Barrett said that while primary students are allowed the day off on Friday, secondary students are set work to do at home ahead of the next week.

Mrs Barrett said she did not mind if some of her students were playing video games instead of being at school on a Friday.

‘Secondary students need to learn to manage their own learning, if they choose to do their work on a different day that is fine, it will give them the resilience to do well at University,’ she said.

‘On Fridays our primary students should be doing what makes them happy, if that is playing video games then so be it.’

Mrs Barrett said the school was designed to allow all lessons to be outside and each class has a tent-like ‘den’ which is equipped with infrared heating and lighting.

A manor house on the site is used in case of high winds and in two cases of extreme weather last year the primary school closed for safety reasons.

The headteacher said: ‘Being outdoors is not an endurance test for the children and the point is not to make them suffer through it. We do it because of the benefits to wellbeing and mental health.

‘Children do not feel the cold as much as adults do, I think because they are moving around so much. I am always telling them to put their coats back on.’

Mrs Barrett is referred to by all her pupils in the school as Leanna, with all staff and students communicating on a first-name basis.

Despite all of the changes, she rejects the idea that her school is ‘woke’. 

She added: ‘I see a fear of change from a lot of people, something new is often difficult.

‘It can be daunting to do something different, but there is an enormous amount of research about how beneficial learning outside is. It is difficult to be the first at anything and I think that fear of getting it wrong can be a barrier.

‘I believe all school could benefit with more of a focus on wellbeing and all schools could spend more time outdoors. 

‘It is not all wishy-washy, so much of what we do is routed in scientific research and in science, we know it works.’ 

The school has also taken a new approach to punishing children for bad behaviour. 

Speaking to the Wimbledon Times, Mrs Barrett said rather than detentions, children are asked to ‘regulate their own behavior’.

It is not the first school to implement the four-day working week. 

St Peter’s Catholic School in the Solihull last year started giving teachers a day off each fortnight – and says the policy has instantly heralded a drop in sick days and attracted new recruits.

It comes as Labour aims to boost recruitment and retainment in the profession by allowing teachers to do more work from home.

Teachers in England could be offered incentives such as two free periods a week to give them a lie-in and more planning time at home to help with work-life balance. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said increased flexibility will prevent women from leaving the profession when they have children.

Department for Education figures show 39,971 (8.8 per cent) teachers in England left in 2022-23, not including those who died or retired.

The Department for Education announced in July that teachers and school leaders will get a 5.5 per cent pay rise for 2024-25.

While limited to the same holiday periods as their pupils, teachers are generally off for six weeks in the summer, a fortnight each at Christmas and Easter and a week at each of the three half-term breaks, although some of those periods will also include teacher training days. Teachers also use holiday periods to plan lessons and catch up with marking.

A recent survey of 16-24-year-olds found the stress associated with teaching, as well as the pay, is putting off potential entrants.

The survey, in a report last month by the education charity Teach First, found that although 73 per cent of the 3,000 respondents considered teaching as a job with purpose, almost half (42 per cent) also perceived it as stressful. More than a third (36 per cent) considered it poorly paid.

The report called for every teacher to be given a ‘flexibility’ entitlement, including short-term secondments away from school to work in other sectors and career breaks offering unpaid leave.

Labour has pledged to end the recruitment crisis in schools by supplying 6,500 extra teachers and introducing a £2,400 early career retention bonus.