The Birdwings LEAF Journey: 8 Weeks to Transform Your Nature Mentor Practice
An immersive 8-week advanced course for educators and nature mentors ready to transform their practice with child-centered, nature-connected learning.
What You’ll Experience
The 8-week LEAF Immersion is a personal and professional journey.
This is a space for unlearning old habits, finding depth in your work, and reclaiming creativity in your pedagogy.
Through a blend of online learning, creative practice, and reflective mentoring, you’ll explore the Six Core Practices at the heart of Birdwings Forest School’s approach to early childhood and nature mentoring.
Each week invites you into an authentic cycle of learning, practice, reflection, and connection — supported by Jen, Narell, and our experienced Birdwings team.
EACH WEEK YOU'LL BE SUPPORTED TO :
🌿Mentor, not instruct.
🌿Build presence, curiosity, and courage in your practice with children
🌿Slow down and find the rhythm of flow in your program
🌿Hold emotional safety with lightness and care
🌿Foster agency, children’s voice and respectful communication
🌿Weave ecological storytelling and place-based learning through daily practice
🌿Reconnect to your own sense of purpose and belonging in nature
Jen, Narell and the team at Birdwings are incredible. Their site is inspiring, and we left with so much knowledge. But more than that, we left with the confidence to put it into practice. Thank you so much!
What’s Included:
🌿Specific training around the LEAF Framework used by Birdwings Forest School in their nature programs with children.
🌿8 Weekly online lessons introducing each Core Practice of the Birdwings LEAF Framework
🌿Live online connection circles with expert Birdwings Forest School Nature Mentors Jen and Narell for shared mentoring and discussion.
🌿Creative reflection and practice invitations
🌿 Access to resources for creative and practical skills, as well as templates for risk assessments, reflections and storytelling
🌿Over 30 professional development hours
🌿Certificate of completion for your professional development records
Invest in Your Practice with Kindy Uplift Funding
The LEAF 8-Week Immersion is eligible for Kindy Uplift Funding, making it an accessible investment in your professional growth. By participating, you’re not only expanding your skills as a nature mentor and educator, but you’re also enhancing experiences for the children in your care, deepening their connection with nature, and enriching your own practice with creative, child-centered approaches.
The Birdwings team of educators are so deeply committed to supporting staff to meaningfully connect and learn more about ways we can engage others in ecological storytelling and documentation in our early years community. Thank you again for sharing your thought provoking and practical approach, which offers valuable strategies for fostering lifelong learning.
What is the LEAF Framework?
LEAF is a living framework created by Birdwings Forest School for working intuitively, respectfully, and responsively with children through nature, the arts, and practical living skills.
Living: the active, sensory world of experience
Ecology: interconnection between self, community, and environment
Agency: children’s freedom to explore, choose, and contribute
Flow: the natural rhythm of learning through play and curiosity
From these roots grow our Core Practices, the foundation of this course, adaptable to any setting, age group, or program — from early childhood through middle childhood
Throughout the session, I was encouraged to step into the children’s perspective: noticing what they notice, listening to their questions without rushing to answer, and engaging with their world with genuine interest. It reminded me that children are not just learning from us—we are also learning from them.
Who This Course Is For
This journey is for educators and nature mentors who:
🌿 Want to bring more meaning and connection into their outdoor programs
🌿 Are ready to slow down and listen deeply to children and nature
🌿Feel drawn to reflective, intuitive practice rather than prescriptive teaching
🌿 Are looking for a framework that blends philosophy with practical application
Meet Your Mentors
Jen and Narell, Co-Directors of Birdwings Forest School, are pioneers in nature mentoring, combining decades of experience in early childhood education, the arts and nature connection.
Their work has inspired educators across Australia to embrace ecological storytelling and slow pedagogy as the heart of their teaching practice.
Narell and Jen are experts in their field and share with you their infectious love of seeing children flourish in nature - and the ways they make this happen in their unique approach to nature connection in their programs.
Use Your Kindy Uplift Funding
The LEAF Framework 8-Week Immersion supports every area of the Kindy Uplift Funding priority areas:
🌿Culturally safe, inclusive, and responsive programs
🌿Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives
🌿Equity and access for all children
🌿Social and emotional learning
🌿Physicality and movement
🌿Executive function skills
🌿Language, literacy, mathematics, and numeracy
By participating, you’ll not only grow your own skills as a nature mentor and educator, but also enhance children’s connection with nature, creativity, and wellbeing.
Join the Next LEAF Journey ...
Spaces are intentionally limited to keep our circles small and personal.
Come join a growing movement of educators transforming nature connection in Australia.
