About Elysian

Elysian is a therapeutic education centre offering various programmes to help facilitate young people that have usually been out of mainstream education for 2 years or more.

Animal-based therapy and farm-based education are at the heart of what they provide. As well as these more unconventional programmes, GCSE equivalent qualifications are also offered.

They have two sites in Surrey, and one in Hampshire.

Our Visit to Elysian

The purpose of our visit was to engage with some of the students and teach them about what ecology is and what our jobs entail. After a short presentation by Sarah and Charlie, we opened the room up for any questions from the children, to encourage them to have a conversation with us if they felt able. We were then shown around the site by some of the students.

The site in West Horsley has a vast range of different animals that are used in various capacities for therapy and enrichment. We met their lovely goats, chickens and donkeys (including the gorgeous baby donkey Sunday, who was a surprise addition in July 2025). They have a reptile room with bearded dragons, a leopard gecko, skink and corn snake.

What became clear to us while visiting was that all the children have a particular animal that they have an affinity with. It was really special to see how animated they got when telling us about their favourites, which shows just how effective the programme is at helping children with additional educational needs to flourish in the right environment.

As well as the animal side of the therapy, the teachers also work with the surrounding landscape as a tool to help engage with the learning strategies of the school. There is beautiful woodland surrounding the farm buildings and this natural setting seems to bring out even more confidence in the students.

We found the visit incredibly enriching, and it is clear that the teachers and other staff working at the school have a deep care both for the students, but for the animals as well – all the animals are rescues from various environments.

We look forward to working with them more in the future, and have plans to help the students to install bat and bird boxes on the site, to help them engage even further with the environment they are learning in.

You can find out more about Community Engagement at aLyne here.