Alternative Education Provision in Buckinghamshire - Serving Herts & Oxon

At Moon Herbs, we believe every child is unique and capable of profound growth when met with empathy and patience. Our smallholding is a sanctuary away from academic pressure, designed to rebuild confidence and ignite a natural love for learning.

Our Core Beliefs:

• No Failure, Only Learning: Every challenge is a opportunity to discover and grow. We celebrate effort and curiosity over standardised outcomes.
• Connection is Healing: We believe that a child’s innate connection to themselves and their intuition is strengthened through quiet moments with animals and the rhythms of nature. This is the simplest, most powerful form of healing.
• Beyond Labels: We see the child, not the diagnosis. We honour different needs, learning styles, and personalities, creating a space of unconditional acceptance.
• Building Trust & Independence: Our activities are empowering. Whether holding a newly laid egg or building a new veggie bed, children learn to trust their own abilities and take charge in their own way.

Led by Magalie, a medical herbalist and trauma-release therapist, our sessions are infused with a deep understanding of holistic wellbeing, ensuring every child feels seen, safe, and supported.

Ready to See Your Child Thrive?
We know finding the right setting is a big decision. Our onboarding process is designed to ensure Moon Herbs is the perfect fit for your child and our small, established group.

Our Onboarding Process:

1. Initial Conversation: Contact us via email or phone for an informal chat about your child’s needs and our approach.
2. Trial Session: If it sounds like a good fit, we will invite you to book a trial session. To protect the dynamic of our core group, these are only offered on specific dates each term.
3. Offer of a Place: Following a successful trial, we will offer a place for your child to join us for a term, following the Buckinghamshire school term dates.

Pricing & Commitment:
We are committed to accessibility and offer two pricing structures to reflect the different levels of documentation and funding requirements.

For Self-Funding Families:

• Trial Session: £85 (one-off, for a 4-hour session)
• Term-Time Sessions: Horse communication: £50 per 2hr session,  Farm and gardening : £50 per 3hr or £70hr per 4hr session. This requires a weekly commitment for a full term to ensure consistency and progress for your child.
• 1:1 session £70 per hour

For Schools or Families with an EHCP or EOTAS Package:
We are registered with Buckinghamshire county as an alternative education provider to make your onboarding process easier.

• Trial Session: £180 (one-off, for a 4-hour session). This cost reflects the additional assessment and reporting required.
• Term-Time Sessions: £150 – £250 per session. The exact fee is determined after an assessment of your child’s learning needs and the specific funding agreed within their plan. This also requires a weekly term-time commitment
• 1:1 session £90 per hour

Holiday Sessions:
We run special sessions during half-terms and holidays. These are priced separately and booked on an ad-hoc basis, outside of the termly commitment.  Spaces in our small, supportive groups are extremely limited to ensure individual attention.

Contact us today to ask questions or enquire about our next available trial day.
Email: magalie@moonherbs.co.uk
Phone: 07950525962

Farm Sessions : Tuesdays 1-4pm & Thursdays 12:30-4:30pm

An opportunity for children to connect with nature and animals. We offer hands on sessions at our small holding, with our sheep, alpaca, ponies, chickens, geese, Icelandic sheep, dogs and cats.

Activities will vary for each session according to the season and animal care needed:

• handling and feeding sheep, sheep shearing, lambing
• cleaning the chicken coops and collecting the eggs, watching chicks hatch
• horse grooming, feet trimming, poo picking
• and anything that might interest the children

Horse Communication Sessions : Wednesday 12:45-2:45pm

What the course is (and isn’t)

This is not a riding course. It’s about true horse partnering from the ground.

Children will learn:

• How horses communicate, behave, and bond

• Grooming, feeding hay, poo picking, cleaning feet

• Horse anatomy and natural herd/ram behaviours in the wild

• Observing how horses breathe and talk to each other

• Using our own body, voice, and breath to communicate with them – their language, not dominance

• Setting boundaries and respecting the horse’s boundaries too

• Ground work skills – leading and lunging – building confidence and clear, gentle communication

These are nurturing, reconnecting sessions – therapeutic for both the horse and the child.

Gardening & Food Growing Sessions : Monday 11:45-2:45pm

Our food-growing sessions run all year round, giving children the chance to get their hands in the soil and follow the journey from seed to plate. Whether they are preparing beds, making compost, sowing seeds, or tasting what they have grown, every session is hands-on, seasonal and child-led. It is a wonderful way to support children’s learning, build confidence, and help picky eaters reconnect with fresh food by discovering where it really comes from.

•  Grow everything from seeds – all year round

• Learn to prepare soil and make compost

•  Make seedlings, pot them on and write plant labels

• Brew our own compost tea

• Tend, water and care for growing plants

•  Harvest, taste and eat what we grow

• Understand plant biology and where food comes from

• Support picky eaters to reconnect with food

• Seasonal, hands-on and child-led session

A nurturing space to learn, grow and feel confident

1:1 Bespoke Farm Session: Tuesday and Thursday mornings

Our 1:1 sessions are designed for children who are not quite ready to join our group sessions yet and need extra support to build their confidence, or for children with higher needs who may not be suited to a group setting for safety reasons on the farm. We work with a wide range of needs and neurodivergent children, including those who have experienced school trauma or other trauma, bereavement, social anxiety, selective mutism, high anxiety, depression, and school refusal. We also support autistic and ADHD children, non-speaking children, and children with physical disabilities, chronic illness, sensory processing differences, PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance), dyspraxia, speech and language delays, and attachment difficulties.

• Completely bespoke to each child’s needs, interests and pace

• A variety of activities from our group sessions: animal care, food growing, horse communication, gardening, farm DIY and more

• Helps rebuild confidence and supports children in joining group sessions in the future

•  Supports learning and progress towards new milestones – such as speaking, completing tasks, developing motor skills, academic learning and building social connections

• Trauma-informed, child-led and nurturing 

• A calm, safe environment where every child feels seen and supported

Nature is an amazing healer. The children who have come to us have made incredible progress. Every small step is celebrated, and every child is met exactly where they are.