Seven Fields of Practice

Ruskin Mill Trust’s ‘Practical Skills Therapeutic Education’ works with Seven Fields of Practice to provide students with a truly holistic and integrative educational experience.  Whilst being distinct, the Fields of Practice form an educational continuum that assists in the structuring of the student journey.  The Seven Fields of Practice are subject to research up to the Master’s and PhD level and inform the staff training across the Trust.

Field 1 Genius Loci / Spirit of Place – Genius Loci recognises the heritage and uniqueness of locality. In each educational provision, we work holistically with the landscape, its geology, flora and fauna, and history of human activity, to develop specialist curriculum activities.

Field 2 Practical Skills – The field of Practical Skills, founded on craft and land-based activities, is designed to support students’ cognitive, emotional and physical development, and embed functional skills. Through sourcing material from the locality, forming it with their own hands and making an item of service for others, the students reconnect to the earth, themselves and their community.

Field 3 Biodynamic Ecology – Biodynamic Ecology recognises that each farm and garden is an integrated dynamic organism that responds to wider, more subtle, cosmic influences. Students follow a seed-to-table curriculum to celebrate nature’s rhythms, and are encouraged to eat healthily.

Field 4 Therapeutic Education – The journey of the students at Ruskin Mill Trust places an emphasis on facilitating wholeness where there is fragmentation, and movement where there is stagnation. This transformative approach to education is underpinned by the concept of phasic human development and applied sensory integration. By engaging with age-appropriate activities, students re-step missed developmental opportunities.

Field 5 Holistic Support and Care – The field of Holistic Support and Care stands behind the twenty-four hour educational curriculum and, in particular, the life of students in their residential provision. It is here that students actively engage in homemaking and mastering basic living skills. These learning experiences provide support for the development of healthy life processes.

Field 6 Holistic Medicine – Ruskin Mill Trust offers a range of holistic therapies to support students’ health and wellbeing in accordance with the whole human being approach. The field of Holistic Medicine is promoted through collaboration between a multi-disciplinary team of practitioners, support staff, doctors and nurses. At the heart of this field of practice is the student study.

Field 7 Transformative Leadership – Ruskin Mill Trust acknowledges and appreciates multiple intelligences, such as emotional and aesthetic intelligence, and situational awareness. To progress the student journey towards self-generated conscious action, staff are required to consciously role model positive relationships with other human beings as well as their environment.

The Seven Fields of Practice contribute to Ruskin Mill Trust’s vision that each individual has the potential to shape their own future through experiencing meaningful relationships with universe, earth and people.