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What is The Portal?
So mention ‘The Portal’, and it’s highly likely one of the first questions that gets asked is ‘What Is The Portal?’. And even those of us passionate about it and fully committed to making it a reality can struggle to give a concise answer. So why is that the case?
Well I guess it starts with a part of the problem being that first word in the question ‘what’! What tends to be more object focussed, either a single object or a ‘sum of its parts’ object. The Portal has very little to do with either. It’s a concept brought to life. It’s an emotion like LOVE, like PASSION, like FUN, like JOY, like FULFILMENT, we know them when we feel them, we KNOW they exist but they are virtually impossible to describe succinctly. Or to put it a different way – it’s like the outline of a three dimensional cube on a blank piece of paper; it’s reasonably easy to describe the cube, it’s far more difficult to describe the blank piece of paper. But The Portal is that blank piece of paper, it’s not a box with sides and edges that things fit comfortably into; it’s that blank piece of paper waiting for whatever creation is going to come along next. At times it’s easier to say what it is not, rather than what it is. It is definitely NOT a school, it definitely DOES NOT have a taught curriculum. It definitely DOES NOT believe in standardised assessment tests. It definitely DOES NOT have a structured time table. It definitely DOES NOT have bells to mark the end of lessons!
So, no, that question isn’t easy to answer, but I can still hear you about to ask ‘yes, but What Is The Portal?’ and this is my attempt to answer that in a sentence, in a few sentences and in a longer paragraph version.
by Richard Draper
Co-founder and Director
In a paragraph
The Portal is a radical alternative education provision. The Portal is established as a Norfolk based Community Benefit Society, this means it is owned and run by the Members of the Society. It is fully democratic in the way it operates, with all its Members (which include all of our children and young people) having a full and active democratic part in the development and delivery of The Portal. It offers a radically different educational approach to that of mainstream schools. It is open to all children and young people aged 4 to 18, and is free at the point of entry. Every child and young person co-produces their own Individual Living and Learning Plan, and these provide the foundation stones for both addressing any needs that require resolving and identifying the learning experiences and environments that child or young person wishes and needs to follow to achieve their desired living and learning outcomes. The Portal will have a number of different and varying sites, to include at least one, possibly more, bricks and mortar site(s) in Norwich, a woodland/wildlife site on the outskirts of Norwich and a smallholding. In addition to being able to learn from activities on those sites young people will be given the opportunity to learn in a wide variety of real life settings. The Portal will fully embed the Nurtured Heart Approach, ensuring everything is built on and delivered in a way to recognise and reinforce strengths, rather than focus on weaknesses. Portal will encourage the full and active involvement of parents/carers; it will seek to recruit a large number of volunteers to take on a wide variety of roles; it will have a highly skilled and dedicated employed staff team; it will build strong partnerships with local business, community groups and individuals who can offer our children and young people that wide variety of experiences they are so keen to embrace. Throughout these experiential learning experiences the young person will receive the full and necessary support from an empathetic adult appropriate to both the setting and the young person. The Portal will do everything it can to ensure when a young person is ready to leave The Portal they are fully equipped to fulfil their full potential in all aspects of the adult world. Actually, on further reflection, what The Portal IS - is actually every young person that leaves The Portal for their next stage in life doing so fully rounded, confident, articulate and well equipped to go on to achieve their full potential, and recognising The Portal played a significant part in enabling them to do that.
In a few sentences
The Portal is a Norfolk based alternative education provision. It is open to children and young people aged 4 to 18. It is free for all those who need it to be. It is entirely child and young person-centred and child and young person led, with empathetic adults providing the necessary support. It is fully democratic, with all of our children and young people having an equal say in the development and operation of The Portal. It places learning through firsthand experiences at the heart of what it does.
In a sentence
The Portal is a Norfolk based, completely child and young person centred and self-directed approach to fully democratic and experiential learning.