Secret Garden (outdoor nursery)

The Secret Garden is an outdoor nursery school in Letham, Fife, Scotland, for children aged 3–7 years. It is a forest kindergarten in which children walk to a woodland every day, in almost any weather. They use the natural resources they find there rather than modern toys (although with some additional equipment) to learn according to the government educational framework under the heading "Nature as Teacher". The Secret Garden was started in 2008 by Cathy Bache, a drama and primary teacher and parent of three. Before opening this, she provided childcare to a smaller number of children, and developed her ideas during this time. Forest kindergartens were started in the 1950s and became popular in Germany in the 1990s.