Teacher in the Paddock

About Teacher in the Paddock

Teacher in the Paddock is a Charity operated by Kevin Powell, a primary teacher, and Jane, gardening guru who shares their wealth of knowledge about food.


Set in the picturesque Waitao Valley of Welcome Bay, children explore and learn about farm and forest life with child centric activities of exploration and discovery. Predominantly based outdoors in all weather, we have an awesome old woolshed that we utilise as our indoor space.

Activities such as cooking on the fire, harvesting fruit and nuts, feeding the animals
Conservation work (trapping rats, removing pest plants), catch and release eels.
Hut building, horse rides, swimming/wading in the stream, mud pit diving, games and more.

Children are supported to develop tolerance, resilience, independance and leadership through facing challenges in a small safe group, where expessing their innate virtues of empathy, kindness and caring comes naturally through interaction with animals of all types.
We offer After School Care, Holiday Programmes and our increasingly popular
Farm and Forest School Programme.

We also host school groups, kindergarten children and early childhood centers, where they experience the wonder of milking our house cows, feeding chickens and learning about composting, worm farming and growing our food.

Our aim is to foster the connection we feel to nature through understanding where our food comes from and what it does to us.