A classroom without walls: New Zealand’s nature schools emphasise mud over maths

Children get to jump in a mud pit, learn and run around outdoors as part of their day at nature school. Photograph: Hagen Hopkins

Ashton Wilcox, 8, points to a dead hedgehog snagged in the rocks of a stream at Battle Hill, a farm 45 minutes north of New Zealand’s capital city Wellington. “Look, its insides are moving” he says with alarm, examining the quills now colonised by maggots.

A teacher nearby gently advises Ashton not to touch the animal, then explains hedgehogs are a pest in New Zealand and that the maggots are breaking down its remains. Ashton watches a moment longer in curious horror, before bouncing back up the stream to join a group of excitable children who are feeding a writhing mass of eels.