“…the real task of those who prepare children for adult life is to make it possible for them to acquire their own ‘I’: that is, to be themselves in front of all their outer and inner life situations.”
Village School
The Village School serves school children from preschool through sixth grade. Located in Royalston, Massachusetts, it is situated on the northern border of the Camp Caravan Educational Campus.
Inspired by the educational philosophy of J.G. Bennett, Elizabeth Bennett, Pierre Elliot, G. I. Gurdjieff, Irmis Popoff, Paul Anderson, Annie Lou Staveley, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner and others, the school developed its own philosophy and curricula, in response to the needs of children in this time and place.
Village School history
Seeking education options for their children, local parents founded the school in 1989. Most had studied with J.G. Bennett and Pierre Elliot at Sherborne House in England and the Claymont Society in West Virginia.
Today, those same parents continue their commitment to serving the region—rural north central Massachusetts—by providing wonderful educational opportunities for local families.
Rise Richardson, Sherborne alum and an early founder of the school, was the first Director, serving from 1998 through her retirement in 2024. She was the catalyst for community building, honing the vision, the existence of the on-campus facilities, fundraising, and many other milestones.
The school is fortunate to have Jocelyn Langer serving as Director. A former teacher at the school, she is moving the school forward into a new era.
Village School approach
The Village School embraces place-based education. The grounds at Camp Caravan allow for a wealth of opportunities for the youngest children to the sixth graders.
The younger children select a “special place” in the woods that they visit throughout the year and journal their observations. The school has a Biodiversity Week every year where each class goes out and lists as many living things as they can find, to form a school-wide biodiversity list. The rich surroundings provide ample opportunities for science classes and are the inspiration for creative projects.
The Village School mission
The school’s curriculum focuses on hands-on, in-depth learning, aiming for each student to find responsible independence. The school helps children develop their talents and champions cooperative learning, while celebrating the uniqueness of each child.
Values for children’s education
• Nurturing children’s innate connection to nature
• Providing time for each student to develop their capacities by learning with, and understanding, their bodies, feelings, and minds
• Ongoing learning and discovery in children’s play
• Learning from mistakes, trying and trying again—acquiring skills through persistence, effort, and hard work
• Modeling kindness; learning takes place when children feel accepted and respected
• Noticing, respecting, and honoring differences, while celebrating all we have in common
• Cooperation—we are always stronger together
• Building community through multi-age classrooms and interactions between children of all ages
• Each student developing responsible independence, confident in their ability to work on their own and to thrive in a group
A home for the Village School
The Millers River Educational Cooperative (MREC) purchased the Camp Caravan property in 1998 for a permanent location for the Village School and as a home base for the MREC. After a long period of fundraising, the new Village School building opened in fall 2018 on the Camp Caravan campus
Full of light and color, the five-classroom Village School building provides lots of room for hands-on learning. The school makes good use of the 54-acre Camp Caravan site. Weekly hikes, science classes in the forest, sledding and woodland play are all part of the program. In 2025, the school added two yurts to serve the needs of pre-school children.
Explore the Village School
View the comprehensive Village School site here. Web features include articles, book reviews, calendars of events, photographs, and more. For an ongoing connection, sign up for the weekly enews, available during the school year here.
Join Camp Caravan eNews
Stay in the loop with latest news, events and writings
…”this sense of place, of being in our true home, is a taste of our spiritual home. How can we facilitate for this to be a part of the child’s experience?
