About us
Sophie Christophy works with founders, leaders and facilitators on the creation of consent-based learning environments and communities. She works on deconstructing patriarchy and 'power over' dynamics from childhood socialisation in education and family culture, and in organisational culture, through a cultural and organisational shift to principles of consent and self-direction.
In January 2018, she co-founded a consent-based, self-directed education setting called the Cabin, for home educated young people aged 5-11. The Cabin is the first education setting for children in the UK to be explicitly designed through a lens of consent, self-direction and children’s rights. It is also the first to identify itself as Education Positive – a transdisciplinary education philosophy that breaks down traditional subject silos, hierarchy and gatekeeping, and instead is curiosity driven, problem-solving and critical thinking oriented. It is an open access approach to learning based on children’s rights and a more holistic sense of the human experience. In 2021 she co-founded the Lodge, a follow on setting from the Cabin, a community for young people up to the age of 16.
Carla is an interdiscplinary international thought leader and practitioner in learning with technologies, informed by the Learning Sciences, reinventing education. She was Director of Futures at University College London—Institute of Education, Global Digital Director Education at Cambridge University Press, ran an EdTech Think Tank, the Tmrw Institute, and was Director of Digital Change at Hodder Education.
She is a Trustee at Big Education, a member of the DEFI Oversight Committee at Cambridge university, advisory board of ErasmusX at Erasmus University Rotterdam is a member of World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) Expert Network for AI, and workgroup on AI and Childhood and was a interim Chair of the Board for R:Ed (Right for Education Africa).
Carla founded Refracted!, an online interdisciplinary community on learning and translational research and mentors EdTech start-ups.
Carmel is a parent with lived-experience, an educator, an educational researcher, published author, an entrepreneur and a data scientist. She has over 20 years experience in the higher-education & high-tech sectors. She is also on the board of trustees of the Centre for Self Managed Learning.
But more importantly:
She knows what it is like to be a parent of a young person who struggle to attend school.
She knows what the evidence shows us and how out-dated our system is.
She knows how hard it is for school teachers to accomodate every young person's needs.
She knows what it’s like from an employer's & higher education's points of view.
See the list of Carmel's academic and non-academic publications.
Karine, a renowned and accomplished educational expert, has a wealth of experience as a headteacher in an 'Outstanding' Oftsed-rated school spanning over 20 years.
She is actively involved in applying evidence-based and research practices to education to revolutionise leadership and pedagogy. With a strong belief in the power of technology to enhance 21st-century teaching and learning, Karine has provided reports on its implementation to the DfE, authored numerous articles on educational topics, and contributed to the books 'Square Pegs: Inclusivity, compassion and fitting in – a guide for schools' and 'Sustainable School Transformation: an inside-out school-led approach'.
Dr Ian Cunningham chairs the Governing Body of SML College in Brighton. He created Self Managed Learning in the late 1970’s and was the first person to be awarded a PhD in Management Learning, from the University of Lancaster.
He has published seven books (among which are ‘Self Managed Learning and the New Educational Paradigm’ and ‘Developing Leaders For Real: Proven approaches that deliver impact’) and over 120 articles and papers in areas such as education, learning, leadership and organisational change. Ian has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Utah, Middlesex University and the Technical Teacher Training Institute, Bhopal and most recently in Organisational Learning at Kodolányi János University of Applied Science, Hungary. He also founded Strategic Developments International Ltd (and is now its President), a social enterprise consultancy working across all corporate sectors. In the latter capacity he has acted as a learning consultant to most of the world’s largest international companies as well as to the UK National Health Service, Government departments and local authorities. Ian is also a dancer with the Three Score Dance Company in Brighton. His last educational qualification (2011) was to qualify as an oxy-acetylene welder.
O u r v a l u e s
Autonomy: I will take responsibility for my life. I will set my own goals and derive my objectives in order to attain them. I will also determine how and when I want to learn towards them, and how I want to assess my development. I will frequently stop, think and change my path if needed.
Diversity: I will seek to learn where other people are coming from and going to, absorb and enrich my own mental models from them. We are not identical. With maturity, experience and privilege, comes responsibility. I am here to listen, understand and maintain my humility.
Experimentations: Going through my learning journey, I will take time to continuously experiment. An experiment starts from curiosity, not discipline. An experiment is carried out with the purpose of learning and reflecting, not for the purpose of succeeding.
I do not expect perfection from myself and others. I expect my learning journey to be a non-linear bumpy road. I will allow myself to stop when I need to, to look carefully at each bump and try to learn from it. Some bumps will change my journey.
Parental engagement: Parents, carers and home communities can make an important contribution as those shaping young people's culture, minds and expectations. Learning is happening all the time and everywhere, and home is a huge part of it.
who are we?
Liz Spencer
Co-founder & Facilitator
Dr Ian Cunningham, Advisor Self Managed Learning
Karine George, Advisor
Pedagogy, Education and Schools
Sophie Christophy, Advisor Consent Based Education
Carla Aerts, Advisor
Educational technology and Research
Anna Oldfield
Facilitator
Anna is passionate about co-creating communities of care, and spaces to take creative and imaginative risks. She has spent the last decade working on inclusion (particularly of families), at arts festivals and consent-based temporary autonomous communities, as well as within her locality.
She holds a deep trust in all individuals’ innate curiosity which pushes us to experiment, play and learn when given spacious but safe containers for it, and sees her role at The Harbour as an opportunity to put this into practice.
Anna also teaches yoga, facilitates workshops centred around seasonal living, is an occasional performance artist and a keen-amateur in permaculture.
Liz wants to help build a better world by:
trusting young people’s innate wisdom and capacity to grow and discover themselves
facilitating a secure, supportive community for us all to thrive in
empowering each other to build respectful, consent based relationships
practising kindness and empathy with ourselves, each other, and the world we find ourselves in.
Liz’s career background is in research in epidemiology and evidence based medicine. A few years ago she trained as a forest school leader, joined courses on consent-based education and compassionate communication, and has grown from there to become part of this team providing the safe running of The Harbour.
Liz’s own current learning journey includes compassionate communication skills; wild plant identification, and beginner’s ukelele. She also loves singing with other people and being in the woods.
Dr Carmel Kent
Co-founder & Facilitator
Gloria Azcona
Co-founder & Facilitator
From a young age Gloria set her sights on exploring the world and her passion for travel led her to study languages and follow a career in international business. She wanted to help young people discover their own potential and follow their passions and so completed teacher training in 2014.
Gloria’s learning journey continued as a Class Teacher and Wellbeing Lead and has brought her to The Harbour where she is excited to be able to help the young people on their own personal journeys.
Gloria believes that:
Young people should be given agency and trusted to shape their own future and the world they live in.
We all have a responsibility to build safe, supportive, and inclusive communities.
Self-directed learning is a lifelong skill that should be nurtured in everyone, regardless of age.
Other skills that Gloria has learnt and enjoys include woodwork, sewing, cooking and most recently learning to swim front crawl after overcoming a dislike of cold water.
Ayesha is passionate about self-directed education, with all her previous jobs leading upto this point she encouraged participants to follow their flow during sessions, during outdoor session with children, and in schools. She started self-directed facilitation in 2020 having worked previously in London co running and facilitating at a self-directed setting. Her previous work as counsellor and outdoor facilitator had equipt her well in navigating a self-directed space, which is never just one way.
In the setting she offers space for emotional support and fosters the flames of inspiration that young people show in any ways. Her sensitive and grounded approach with people makes it easy for others to feel at ease and be themselves.
She continues to work on and practice values of authenticity, openness, deep listening, gentleness, interconnectedness and peace.
Her work outside of the harbour include running therapeutic cooking sessions with adults, writing poetry, workshops, walking, podcasting and counselling. Her cultural background and previous travels and volunteering with communities in India, Bosnia and locally, has led Ayesha to feel engaged in and contribute to social and global change.
In the harbour she brings her joy of journeys, nature connection, creative expression and play, whilst continuing her own constant learning journey.onal performance artist and a keen-amateur in permaculture.
Ayesha Bhatti
Facilitator
expected learning outcomes
Mental health improvement, young people being heard.
Young people achieve the goals they set for themselves.
Creating meaningful relationships.
Improving self-regulation skills (reflection, planning, awareness and so forth).
Improving meta-cognition skills, such as learning to learn.
Improving conflict resolution skills.
Improving employability skills (for example: entrepreneurship, social media, research, data analysis, etc.)
See more deatils at the 'boing boing' resilience framework.