Announcing a Hands-on Conference with Inspiring School Ground Innovator, Susan Humphries: Sept. 27-28, 2019
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An outdoor lesson in progress at The Coombes School, within a child-planted forest.
Photo: © Sharon Danks
Green Schoolyards America is honored to announce that we will have a very special visitor this fall, in town from England! Our colleague, Susan Humphries, MBE, MA, will join us in the San Francisco Bay Area at the end of September to share her expertise and deep understanding of how to use school grounds to foster children’s learning, play, and happiness.
Ms. Humphries will collaborate with Green Schoolyards America to lead a two-day, professional development conference that shares what she has learned over her 40+ year career as one of the green schoolyard field’s international founders. She brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in teaching methods that are based on outdoor experiences and an understanding of the natural world.
Save the dates!
September 27 – 28, 2019
DAY 1: Hands-on Teaching and
Learning in a Green Schoolyard
DAY 2: Making the Most of
Asphalt-Covered School Grounds
Timing: 9:00 am - 3:30 pm, both days
Location: Hosted by Golestan School, El Cerrito, CA
Our conference program is designed for preschool and elementary school teachers, and will also be well suited to after school and childcare staff, educators in non-formal settings, garden teachers, designers of children’s environments, and members of the public interested in children’s wellbeing, learning, and play.
The program will include a keynote presentation each day with vibrant examples drawn from Ms. Humphries’s inspiring work at The Coombes School in Berkshire, England, where she was the Founding Headteacher (principal) and led the school for almost four decades. The program will also include hands-on workshops designed to bring her teaching philosophy and methodology to life, and provide resources and ideas that participants will be able to use at their own schools after the conference.
A music lesson in progress on the asphalt playground at The Coombes School.
Photo: © Sharon Danks
More information about the speaker:
Susan Humphries, MBE, MA, is the Founding Headteacher of The Coombes School in Berkshire, England. She led the school from 1971 to 2002, and remained involved with their program and landscape development for an additional decade after her retirement. In 2011, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden to acknowledge the foundations she has laid in building individual and group responsibility for healthy ecosystems and use of natural resources. In 2012, Humphries collaborated with her colleague Susan Rowe to write a book called The Coombes Approach: Learning through an Experimental and Outdoor Curriculum, to share teaching methods used at the school. In 2018, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International School Grounds Alliance to recognize the formative impact her ideas have had on the green schoolyard movement across the globe.
Enrollment:
This conference is open to the public. Click here for more detailed information about the event and how to enroll. We hope you will join us for this special event!
Conference organizers:
This conference is a project of Green Schoolyards America, in collaboration with Susan Humphries. It will be hosted by our partners at Golestan Education, on their beautiful school grounds in El Cerrito, CA.