Situated on the back of Blackford Hill and Hermitage of Braid Nature Reserve, our two acres of deep green paddock make direct contact with nature a daily elixir for all.
At EMAS, the outdoors is not an occasional experience; it is the foundation of our learning environment. Our children move seamlessly between classrooms, gardens, workshops, and fields, discovering that knowledge lives everywhere. From the youngest learners to our oldest students, daily contact with the natural world cultivates curiosity, independence, and resilience.
Time outdoors is part of every day, in every season. Children explore, play, and learn through direct engagement with the environment, climbing, digging, building, and imagining with minimal adult direction. This unstructured time is essential for social growth and creativity, offering space to collaborate, negotiate, and dream together. Trees become shelters, rivers and fields turn into laboratories, and each corner of the landscape becomes a canvas for exploration and invention.
The outdoors at EMAS extends far beyond play. Our students study biology beside the pond, measure and calculate in the garden, test scientific principles through real experiments in chemistry and physics, and connect maths to the structures and patterns they find in nature. Farm work, woodwork, and hands-on projects link practical life with scientific understanding, creating a true STEM paradise under open skies.
In these varied environments, children learn to balance freedom with responsibility. They develop sound judgment, assess risk, and strengthen the values of collaboration and stewardship. Whether tending to animals, designing tools, experimenting with forces, or exploring ecosystems, EMAS students come to understand that learning is not confined to four walls; it thrives in the living world around them.
Our Discovery Garden is a place for science and imagination…
Outside our Infant and Children’s House Classrooms our garden has been developed in collaboration with the children, teachers and parents. It is always a work in progress as it grows and changes with each season and each class group.
A plethora of natural sensory experiences greets the children. From sand pits, planting beds, digging beds and flower beds, to intimate shelters and spaces for quiet contemplation, each little one is encouraged to explore at his/her own pace and can begin to develop confidence in moving, looking, seeing and doing.