The Forest School: How Two NZ Teachers Built a Business in the Bush

Gavin and Tennille Murdoch started The Forest School on the Hibiscus Coast north of Auckland because they wanted something different for their own son. Tennille had spent years as a primary school teacher watching children sit still under fluorescent lights. Gavin came from outdoor education. Together they built a school where the forest and the beach are the classroom, no desks, no standardised tests, no four walls.

The model started as a one-day-a-week programme: children attend their regular school four days and spend one day at The Forest School. Parents pay ,150 per term and the school receives no government funding. That constraint forced a lean operation from day one, but it also proved something, families were willing to pay for an alternative to conventional education.

What a school day looks like

A typical day starts with team-building activities and caring for the school’s farm animals. The afternoon moves to the beach or deeper into the forest, depending on the season and what the students are working on. Children build treehouses, design drainage systems, study local ecology and prepare meals over an open fire. The day finishes with group reflection.

The curriculum draws on the Reggio Emilia approach and Te Whāre Tapa Whā, a Māori framework that covers physical, social, spiritual and mental wellbeing. It is aligned with the New Zealand Curriculum but delivered through exploration rather than instruction. Mixed-age groups are deliberate, younger children learn from older ones and older children learn to lead.

From one-day programme to charter school

The one-day model proved the demand. “There are more than 20 one-day nature schools nationwide now,” Gavin says. “We knew it had the potential to impact education across the country and I hope this is just the start.”

In 2026, The Forest School is expanding into a full-time charter school, opening for Term 1 from its base at 605 Hibiscus Coast Highway in Orewa. The new operation is a Reggio Emilia–inspired primary school offering nature-immersed education five days a week, while the original one-day programme continues alongside it.

Why it matters

The Forest School is not a lifestyle project. It is a real business that identified a gap, parents who want their children to spend more time outdoors and less time sitting in rows and built a sustainable model to serve it. The fact that more than 20 similar schools have appeared across the country since the Murdochs started suggests they were right about the demand.

“Children are more than just academic learners,” Tennille says. At The Forest School, that belief is not a slogan. It is the entire business.

For more on building a business in New Zealand, see our Business ideas guide or browse Profiles of NZ founders.