Born Wild Community

08/09/2026

Do you love being outdoors?
Do you believe children learn best when they have space to play, explore, create, wonder and take safe risks?

Our days aren’t about standing at the front and delivering activities. They’re about getting muddy, building cubbies, following curiosity, noticing what’s happening around us and helping children develop a deeper connection with nature, themselves and their community.

We’re looking for people who are:

playful, curious and creative
genuinely comfortable outdoors
warm, inclusive and child-centred
able to support children with different ways of communicating, learning and participating
confident enough to lead, but humble enough to follow a child’s curiosity
excited to be part of a collaborative team

This could be a great fit for education, environment, allied health, or outdoor education students, parents looking for school-hours work, experienced educators, or anyone with a genuine passion for children and nature.

Most work is weekday, casual work, across our term-time programs, with occasional school holiday and weekend opportunities.

Interested?

Email [email protected] for a position description.

07/09/2026

A new season is beginning.

In Australia since colonisation, we generally recognise this as Spring.

But on Wadawurrung Country, we have come across different understandings of this time of year in our region. There is Poorneet, Tadpole Time. There is also Garra, Wattle Flowering Time.

Both descriptions align with what we are seeing here at Born Wild. The tadpoles are appearing, and the wattles are flowering.

So… which is correct?

The honest answer is as a non-Indigenous person, I don’t know.

I can read what is publicly available. I can search, listen and try to learn. But that is very different from holding the deep knowledge of Country and Language developed for thousands of years.

If we truly want to deepen our understanding, we need to learn directly from our Wadawurrung Traditional Custodians.

That is why we are so grateful for recent funding from the City of Greater Geelong that allows organisations like ours to engage with Traditional Custodians.

On Monday 12th October, we will welcome Aunty Corrina, a proud Wadawurrung woman, to Born Wild for an intimate Smoking Ceremony and Cultural Immersion session.

This is an opportunity to stop trying to piece everything together ourselves and instead listen, learn and be guided by someone with a deep knowledge of this Country.

Our Term 4 families have access as part of their booking. Individual tickets are also available for Cultural Connection: A Morning with Aunty Corrina.

We hope this can become an ongoing process of listening, learning and strengthening our connection with local Culture and Country.

We have a long way to go. We will pronounce language incorrectly, mix up definitions, or misunderstand information we have read.

But we will keep correcting ourselves.

And we will try to ensure what we share is guided by the people whose Country and Culture we are learning about.

This season, the tadpoles are appearing.
The wattles are flowering.

And perhaps that is a good reminder that there is always more than one thing happening when we take the time to really notice Country.

07/09/2026

Real conversation at Bush School today…
Parent 1 “I’m not sure about this boredom breeds creativity theory, it so often results in someone turning on or antagonising someone else.”
Parent 2 “Yes, but if you can get through that, the creativity that appears is amazing!”

About 10 mins later - a complicated in depth game has been created, of pine cone throwing through a purposefully swung tyre swing, a mini olympics, stands built, tickets written, full engagement. 3 hours plus of outdoor time is definitely needed in children’s lives, and not just for the under 5s.

06/09/2026

The evidence for the benefits of Bush School is growing and becoming more mainstream. If you’re a teacher or school and want some help to get this happening at your school, send us a PM.

It is not every day that class takes place in the great outdoors, but one initiative is pushing the limits of what learning can look like.

The Greater Sydney Parklands's Bush School program takes young children in urban areas out with education rangers to help foster a love for the natural world.

📲 Read Millie Roberts's full story: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-31/nsw-bush-school-research-education-student-benefits/107046060

05/09/2026

Born Wild Working Bee. Once your morning Fathers Day activities are out of the way, if you’d like to join us we’re continuing our working bee at Born Wild Base Camp tomorrow (Sunday). Plants are in the ground but they need staking and guarding. There’s even a few more to plant. We plan to mow and brush cut the weedy grasses, gather a stash of sticks for firewood, and perhaps even build a saw horse. Maybe you have a dad who’d like to see the space, maybe you want to give dad the afternoon off to play golf?? Either way we’d love your help. We’ll be there from about 2pm. All families welcome.

05/09/2026

Thankyou Corangamite CMA for water bug discovery this week. Wonderful days of adventure, learning, exploration and community. Bookings now open for Term 4. Just one week remaining in Term 3 if you’d like to try a session.

03/09/2026

Sharing this post because it describes what we are about too. If you want to join us and have capacity to support us through funds, marketing, social media, insurance ideas, staffing, volunteering, brainstorming, potential future site on private land, partnerships, navigating NDIS, how to become a sustainable operation but stay true to our values, send us a PM we would love to chat.

There is a lot that happens in the background to keep Birdwings moving forward.

There is red tape. There are processes, administration and requirements. There are problems to solve and decisions to make.

And there always have been.

Birdwings has had hurdles to navigate from the very beginning because we are a business and an approach that does not fit neatly into a box.

And we intend to keep it that way.

We are not interested in changing what we do simply to fit more comfortably within accepted ideas of what childhood, education or nature-based practice should look like.

We want our work to remain relevant. We want to keep learning, questioning and evolving. We want to be part of the current conversation about children, nature, wellbeing and connection.

That means doing things differently.

There are always processes to navigate and work happening behind the scenes. There are also personal lives, busy days and the ordinary realities of being human alongside running a business.

But that is simply part of the work.

We are fortunate to have an incredible team of Nature Mentors and a strong community around us. Their belief in Birdwings and the work we do continues to strengthen what we are building.

We are deliberately challenging accepted notions of childhood and what children need.

We are creating space for different relationships with the natural world.

And we are working towards a future where children and communities are deeply connected to, and actively care for, the natural places around them.

We are not here to fit neatly into a box.

We are here to help change what is possible.

01/09/2026

Happy Wattle Day from Born Wild Community.

It’s Garra (Wattle Flowering) time here on the Bellarine.

We can feel the season changing when we spend time outside. Wattle is blooming. Butterflies and dragonflies are flying again. Frogs are calling and laying their eggs. And this week, we’ve been getting our hands in the water and discovering what makes our freshwater ecosystems thrive.

These seasonal changes are the curriculum at Born Wild.

We notice. We wonder. We look a little closer. We learn the place we are part of.

30/08/2026

River Detectives, come and join us.

For the next two weeks, we’re opening up our remaining spaces at the term rate, giving you the chance to come along for a single session without paying the casual rate.

This week, Born Wild Academy, joined by children from Bush Playgroup and Bush Kinder who are curious to take part, will become River Detectives.

We’ll be joined by a local catchment biodiversity expert to investigate the freshwater dam at our site.

Together we’ll test water quality, survey the habitat and search for aquatic invertebrates, getting hands-on with real science in our own backyard.

Come along, get curious and discover what’s living beneath the surface.

Spaces are limited. Book via the link in bio or visit our website.

28/08/2026

At Born Wild, every week is Science Week.
Every week is Book Week.
Every week is Soil Week.
Every week is Life Learning.

Because nature doesn’t separate learning into subjects.

A walk through the bush becomes a science investigation, a story, a soil discovery, a maths problem, a survival challenge or a question we simply need to know the answer to.

At Born Wild Academy, children use field notebooks to record observations, questions, evidence and discoveries — developing the skills to think like scientists and communicate their thinking.

Our Quests begin with genuine questions:

How do animals thrive in the wild?
Where do we find water?
How could we keep ourselves warm?
What does it take to thrive?

Children wonder. They investigate. They test ideas. They gather evidence. They change their minds.

And the same big questions flow through our Bush Playgroup and Bush Kinder, explored through stories, invitations, nature play and children’s own curiosity.

As children grow, we simply formalise the process a little more.

The wondering becomes a hypothesis.
The noticing becomes an observation.
The experimenting becomes an investigation.
The discovery becomes evidence.

And books are always part of the journey. Stories, field guides, songs, knowledge and ideas helping participants make sense of the world around them.

Because learning doesn’t just happen in subjects. It happens through life experience.

Happy Science Week.
Happy Book Week.
And happy learning always!