FREE email course for parents of children the education system is failing to hold
You're exhausted. You're isolated. Your child is struggling.
Maybe they are reluctant or refusing to go to school. Maybe they've been excluded. Maybe the school keeps getting it wrong. Maybe you're fighting systems that can't see your child for who they really are.
And just maybe, underneath all of it, there are voices whispering: "What did I do wrong?" "Why won't anyone listen?" "What am I missing?" "I can't keep doing this."
I see you. I've been you.
Many years ago, my son Sam was excluded from school for the first time. He was six years old. Over the following thirteen years, exclusions became the pattern of his life.
For too long, I carried the weight of it all—the shame, the confusion, the self-doubt. I should have known. I should have done more. I should have been enough.
I'd been excluded myself as a teenager - when I'd rebelled and been labelled 'bad' rather than understood as distressed. So when Sam's exclusions began, I believed the schools. Of course it was our fault. It had been mine, hadn't it?
Then slowly, over time, I began to see: there was never anything wrong with Sam. There was never anything wrong with me.
The wrongness was in being asked to fit into systems that couldn't hold us.
Are you carrying other people's opinions about you or your child as if they were facts?
When your child struggles in systems that don't flex for them, judgements fly—about them, about you, about what you should be doing differently. It's easy to absorb those judgements until they feel like truth—until they start to feel like shame.
But what if your child isn't broken—they're just speaking a language the system doesn't understand? And what if you're not failing—you're simply working out how to support someone whose needs don't fit the template?
This free course is for you if:
Your child is struggling at school
You're exhausted from fighting systems that don't understand
You're carrying difficult feelings about this - shame, guilt, anger, grief, or just bone-deep tiredness
You feel alone in navigating this
You want a different framework for understanding what's happening
You're not looking for behaviour strategies or SEND system navigation—you need to make sense of what's happening to you and your child
What you'll discover:
Over the two weeks, you'll visit an ancient forest on Dartmoor with Small Oak, a young tree learning what the forest knows through his grandmother. Through his year-long journey, you'll discover the five practices that will guide everything we do in my new community.
You don't need to join anything to benefit—these practices are yours to use right now, exactly where you are.
By Day 14, you'll have had a taste and some experience of…
The five touchstones that will guide our new community—practices you can use immediately, whether you join us or not
A three-part decision-making framework you can use immediately
Saying "No" more clearly to what really isn't OK
A practice for releasing shame
A framework for understanding your child's behaviour as communication
The importance of 'being sanctuary' for yourself and for your child
Every two days, you'll receive:
✨ One chapter of Small Oak's story —set in an ancient forest, following Small Oak as he learns to belong
📖 What it means for you—how the story translates to your life as a parent navigating challenging systems
🌱 A simple practice—something you can do today to embody what you've learned
🌿A poem or a quote—something to keep and reflect upon.
All delivered to your in-box, every other day over two weeks. No overwhelm. Just space to breathe and reflect.
Read an excerpt of the story and meet Small Oak 👇
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The first snow came on a Tuesday morning in December, though Small Oak didn’t know about Tuesdays. He only knew that the wind had changed direction in the night, bringing with it a cold that made his bark contract and his smallest twigs shiver.
He stood near the edge of the forest, where the moor began and the wind blew hardest. He could smell it coming across the open ground—that sharp, clean scent of snow mixed with heather and granite. Around him, the older trees were settling in, their branches making small creaking sounds as they adjusted their weight.
Small Oak had made it through his first autumn. Watched his leaves turn gold, then russet, then brown. Felt them fall, one by one, until he stood bare. And now—winter. His first real winter. When he’d heard the older trees talking about it, they made it sound…difficult.
The wind started to gather its strength more and more. Small Oak felt it pushing against him. His branches strained as they bowed deeply and he could feel the pressure right through his narrow trunk and down into his roots. He felt the earth shift a little and he had never felt that before.
“I’m scared,” Small Oak whispered to Grandmother Oak, who stood beside him. Her trunk was thick and her roots deeper than Small Oak could imagine.
His roots were holding, but only just. He could hear the wind singing as it swirled through the forest—a low, rushing sound that seemed to say let go, let go, let go.
The panic was rising in his sapwood now—a tight, breathless feeling he’d felt before when the Foresters came too close. His roots held onto the earth as best they could but he wasn't sure he could do this.
“I’m not strong enough. What if I break?” said Small Oak and his words came out with a tiny sob.
Grandmother Oak didn’t answer right away. Instead, she did something curious.
She leaned.
Just slightly. Just enough.
Her lowest branches reached toward Small Oak, and suddenly there was stillness where the wind had been. A pocket of quiet. Small Oak could still hear the storm—it was all around them—but here, in this space between their trunks, the air was almost calm.
The panic that had been rising in his sapwood began to ease. His roots, which had been gripping the earth so hard they ached, relaxed just slightly.
“Do you feel that?” Grandmother Oak asked. Her voice was like the settling of wood, deep and slow.
“Yes,” said Small Oak. He could smell the moss on Grandmother Oak’s north side—damp and green and comforting. “It’s quieter now. I can breathe. I feel... safe.”
“That’s sanctuary,” said Grandmother Oak. “And when we have sanctuary, we can feel safe enough to keep growing, even in the hardest seasons. We all need it sometimes. And we all can become it sometimes. That’s the first thing forests know.”
to be continued…
These aren't just pretty metaphors
The five practices you'll visit—being sanctuary, healing shame, trusting your intuition, understanding behaviour as communication, activating both gentle and fierce compassion—are rooted in:
Over ten years of professional experience as a psychotherapist
Working as a teacher and pastoral leader in secondary education
My own journey through trying to fit-in at school as gifted and neurodivergent
Deep personal lived experience of neurodivergence, giftedness, loss and trauma
Inspiration from the ecosystem of the forest
The forest teaches what rigid systems forget: that different isn't broken and that we thrive by leaning into the village, not by standing alone.
I’ve distilled my most challenging experience and hard-won wisdom to create these resources.
I'm here to make sure no other parent has to navigate the forest alone.
How it works:
Enter your name and email below
You'll receive Day 1 immediately in your inbox
Every two days for the next two weeks, a new chapter arrives
Read the story, reflect on what it means for you, try the practice
Hit reply anytime—I read every message
Take it at your own pace.
You will also be signed up for my newsletters and updates. You can unsubscribe anytime.
This email course is completely free
No catch. No hidden costs.
I will invite you to join my new community as a founder member at the end. There will be no pressure to do so.
Whether you join the community or simply use these practices in your life, my hope is the same: that you'll feel less alone, trust yourself more deeply, and see even more clearly that neither your child nor you were ever the problem.
“No tree makes it through winter on strength alone. We make it through by becoming sanctuary for each other.”
—Grandmother Oak