Admissions
Join the student and parent community!
Are you…?
Are you looking for an alternative to the mainstream, one-size-fits-all approach? Do you believe education should equip learners to live rather than just make a living? Do you realise that we all need to fundamentally re-educate ourselves to bring about a change in the education “system”?
Are you willing to relook at your own need for the “system” and the assurances it provides like time tables, exam scores, degrees etc. and see how that drives a lot of inefficiency and pointlessness in education? Are you willing to let your children step out of the ratrace and focus on the really important questions?
If the answer is “yes,” you can join us! Please read the invitation below.
We are…
Farm Hill is a neurodiverse community of children and adults, learning together in a close to nature setting. We are located near Shoolagiri, Tamil Nadu, 65 km (~ 1.5 hours of travel) from Bangalore.
We believe education should equip a person to meet life with intelligence and not stop with the mere acquisition of skills to make a living. We wish to live in harmony with ourselves, the society around us and nature. We believe each child should have the freedom to learn at her own pace. As a neurodiverse community, we are inclusive of children on the autism spectrum, ADHD, and specific learning difficulties.
The team
The team at farm hill has people with expertise in education, neurodiversity, farming, and community building. Some of us also have degrees from places like IIM, IIT, TISS and APU!
We are a semi-residential learning space – Children reach Farm Hill on Monday morning and leave Friday evening. Teachers live on the campus. We started in 2019, and as of 2025, we work with about 15 children. For more details, please read the rest of the website.
Admission Process
Once you get in touch with us, we will plan a visit for your entire family to Farm Hill, on a working day. This will let you experiences all that you have read on the website and elsewhere.
At the end of the day, if the family is interested, we invite the children for a short stay of 1 or 2 weeks. If the child is neurodiverse or needs other support, at least one of the parents accompanies the child.
At the end of this short stay, the child needs to decide whether they want to be part of this community. If they decide to join us, we will take them for a trial period of 1 or 2 months, till all of us, the child, parents, teachers, and other members of the community are all on the same page that it is a good idea. That’s when we offer an admission.
Admissions are offered for one year at a time. Every year, everyone needs to freshly decide they are going to continue to be a part of the community.
What we look for
We are looking to work with families that are open minded about education - people who are willing to relook at their own beliefs, reflect on them and change as the reflections suggest. We are looking for people who are willing to take the different, slow and sometimes difficult path, in the interest of their children.
Another key aspect is community mindedness - the willingness to look at the needs of the other people and the community, along with one’s own and family’s needs. We are looking for people that have compassion for people different from themselves.
If the family is only focused on somehow getting the child through the hurdles of the school exams, or they are very particular about the time lines within which the child needs to finish this exam or that, we may not be the best fit. Families who are interested in getting their children a certain guaranteed experience in return for a certain contribution may also be disappointed with us.
Taking this forward…
Write to us at mailto:hello@farmhill-learning.org - tell us about yourself and your children and why you want to join us. You can also get in touch with us via the contact us page linked below, or the whatsapp link.
Thanks for your interest, we look forward to hearing from you!
Interested?
Write to us!