What was HESFES?

HESFES stood for the Home Educators’ Summer Festival. The organisers also used the name Home Educators’ Seaside Festival, from the earliest Dorset posters to their 2015 welcome page. Early notices sometimes printed the name as HES FES. A camp at Monkton Wylde in Dorset in 1998 grew into a gathering where families could spend a week learning, cooking and making things together.

Who came to the festival?

Families who educated their children at home made up the heart of the gathering. Children who went to school could come with their families too. The volunteer organisers brought quite different needs into one place. A parent could meet others who had experience of finding tutors while a teenager rehearsed with a band or a younger child tried dressing up. Families also came from outside the UK. In their account of the 1999 camp, the organisers recorded one family travelling from Finland.

What did the organisers say in 2005?

The 2005 version of this page described a self-funding co-operative of home-educating families. No membership was required. Visitors could book a camping ticket or stay off site, and no stalls were permitted that year. The organisers named families coming from across Europe and from the United States, giving a sense of the distance some people travelled for the week.

What happened during the week?

Camping gave people time to return to a project, hear a question answered over lunch or meet up with somebody they had watched on stage. On Mersea Island in 2007, visitors made a labyrinth on the beach. At Rougham in 2011 there were workshops in metalwork and weaving, a cinema and places for different age groups to spend time together. The programme also made room for children's cabaret and parents’ discussions about education.

Can families still attend?

The planned 2016 event was cancelled and the original festival ended. Old ticket prices and booking notices belong to the archive. For a family gathering you can attend, visit the events directory, which points to organisers’ own information.