Welcome to Serpil Orman Okulları
Serpil Orman Okulları is a living educational ecosystem that brings together preschool, primary and middle school in the embrace of pine forests at the foot of the Taurus Mountains. At our school, founded on the deep-rooted experience of Serpil’in Dünyası (Serpil’s World) Nursery, children grow with the rhythm of nature.
The learning outcomes of the curriculum are not covered only in classrooms; in the rich learning spaces that nature offers, they turn into experience, creation and lasting knowledge.
Our children grow up feeling that nature is not just scenery but life itself, and they carry this deep life skill with them wherever they go throughout their lives.
Our Vision
To be a pioneer in nature-based education: a life school rooted in the soil and looking out to the world, where every child can follow their own curiosity.
We aim to raise conscientious generations who express their thoughts openly, use foreign languages effectively, stand on the side of creating technology rather than consuming it, and leave their own mark in science, art and sport.
Our Mission
We see education as a journey in which the child gets to know themselves and is prepared for life.
Our mission is to combine academic achievement with practical life skills; to support children’s intellectual, physical and emotional potential in a balanced way, in the forest and in the classroom; and to raise individuals who never lose their bond with nature, who question and who have the courage to turn their ideas into action.
Our Way of Life
Eight core principles make us who we are; they guide both our learning environment and the relationships we build with each other and with nature:
- FairnessLooking after each child’s own needs, effort and pace of development with fairness.
- TrustStepping forward with courage, trusting one another and the rhythm of nature.
- HonestyOpenness in our words and in our actions.
- EmpathyListening to differences and making room to understand one another.
- PeacefulnessResolving disagreements through dialogue, patience and common sense.
- CommunityBelieving in the power of creating together, solidarity and sharing.
- ResponsibilityConsidering the impact of our decisions on nature, on our community and on ourselves.
- SustainabilityGiving back to the soil and to life more than we consume.
Our Story
A Life School Born of a Need
The story of Serpil Orman Okulları was born of a deep need for an educational environment where children could live their childhood freely and grow at their own pace. Serpil Öğretmen, Umar Öğretmen and Evrim Öğretmen set out with an approach that does not confine children to standard moulds but makes room for each child’s unique nature and developmental journey.
For them, the child, education and nature could not be treated separately. Real learning could happen in a peaceful living environment where curiosity is protected and children can be themselves. They believed that lasting success comes when children who feel happy and safe discover their own potential.
They knew that a child’s personality and character are shaped not only by what they learn but by the experiences of their childhood years. They observed that time spent in nature, the friendships formed, the responsibilities taken on and the solutions found to difficulties leave far more lasting marks on children’s lives than most academic knowledge.
This search grew stronger with requests from the families of children who had graduated from Serpil’in Dünyası Kreşi. With the encouragement of parents who wanted the approach in which their children had grown up with love and trust to continue, the school first opened its kindergarten and primary school doors; then, in response to persistent requests, the middle school also joined this ecosystem.
Serpil Öğretmen’s years of educational experience, the vision Umar and Evrim Öğretmen embraced for all children and the trust of families came together. In the end, the three educators brought to life, in their own city at the foot of the Taurus Mountains, the life school of which they could say, “We wish we had been students at this school.”
The architects of our storyOur Founding Educators
Serpil Öğretmen
Our founder
I never went to work; I just went from one home of mine to another.
A graduate of Gazi University in Child Development, Serpil Öğretmen founded Serpil’in Dünyası Kreşi in Mersin in 2000, after 22 years in state schools that brought her many letters of commendation from inspectors of the Ministry of National Education. Having accompanied thousands of children on their journey of growing up over a 47-year career, today she continues to pass this deep-rooted experience on to new generations as the founder of the forest school.
On this journey, which she walks shoulder to shoulder with her twin daughters Evrim and Umar Öğretmen, she now shares the same roof with the children of students she taught years ago. This bond of trust and love, knitted stitch by stitch across generations, continues to nourish the living spirit and educational approach of our school.
Evrim Öğretmen
Founding Educator
Our children do not walk ready-made roads; they clear their own path.
After her studies at Bilkent University, she completed her undergraduate degree in child development and graduated top of her department.
She received Nature and Forest Pedagogy Training from Gaye Amus, who carries out international work in nature-based education in Finland, and studied pioneering forest schools and innovative educational approaches abroad first-hand. With the dream of bringing this experience to her own land, she planted the first seeds of the campus in 2018.
She believes that growing up by experimenting and creating in nature deepens children’s emotional and intellectual development. She continues to lead a living learning environment in which every child can follow their own curiosity and boldly chart their own path.
Umar Öğretmen
Founding Educator
Here no child is just a number; no one gets lost in the crowd, and we bond with each of them from the heart.
After her studies at Bilkent University, she completed her undergraduate degree in child development. While living in England, she took part in courses and workshops on early childhood education and gained experience in various educational institutions.
She then received Nature and Forest Pedagogy Training from Gaye Amus, one of the pioneers of nature-based education, and studied the approaches of forest schools abroad first-hand.
Her dream of a school where every child is noticed without getting lost in the crowd, where individual needs are looked after and where children feel safe took root on our campus in the Taurus Mountains in 2018. The importance she gives to children’s emotional well-being, and to their growing up in a calm setting where they feel peaceful and understood, continues to guide the daily life and educational approach of our school.