The Curiosity Club: Creative exploration for curious minds
The Curiosity Club is a weekly two-hour drop-off session for home-educated and unschooled young people aged 11–15. A space for gently-held learning, it’s part social get-together, part opportunity for creative exploration: somewhere to bring your interests, share what you know, discover something new and get stuck into the questions that fascinate you.
Sessions will be led by Rebecca Baker, a home-educating mum and teacher with more than 15 years’ experience working with young people in secondary and further education.
Each term will have an umbrella theme, topic, question or idea and let’s see where it takes us. Through conversation, creative play, storytelling, making, research and whatever else the subject invites, we’ll explore together, with all interesting rabbit holes open to investigation!
It’s a space for curious, quirky and questioning young people to meet one another, follow their interests and create together.
When: Tuesday afternoons, 2–4pm
Dates: 3 November–15 December
Cost: £13 per session + booking fee
Location: Alibi Studio, EX4 1EJ (please note, the Studio is accessed via a flight of 16 stairs)
This is a drop-off session. Parents, carers and younger siblings are very welcome to spend the time at St Thomas Library downstairs.
five weeks of winter curiosity
MYTHS, MONSTERS & MYSTERIES · NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2026
What are we curious about this term? Glad you asked!
TUESDAY 17 NOVEMBER
The Mystery Games Club
A playful afternoon of mysteries, secret identities, suspicious characters and games of observation, imagination and cunning! Can you spot the culprit, solve the mystery or fool your fellow detectives? We’ll explore some classic games, invent a few twists of our own and see where our imaginations take us.
TUESDAY 24 NOVEMBER
Winter Tales: The Stories Behind Our Traditions
Why do we bring trees into our houses at Christmas? Where did our favourite festive traditions come from? We’ll travel back through winter folklore, ancient customs and spooky seasonal tales, discovering the stories behind the things we do every December. Bring your favourite family traditions to share, and we’ll make a Christmas bauble inspired by our discoveries.
TUESDAY 1 DECEMBER
Christmas Ghosts: Past, Present & Future
Why does winter lend itself to telling ghost stories? We’ll explore this curious tradition, with some traditional Winter tales from around Britain, and meet a few of Dickens’s famous Christmas spirits; and play with the ideas of past, present and future through storytelling and sharing, and creative collage.
TUESDAY 8 DECEMBER
The Great Christmas Movie Debate
What’s the greatest Christmas film of all time? And what makes a film a Christmas film anyway? Bring your favourites, prepare your arguments and see if you can convince the rest of us! We’ll explore the art of the movie trailer, invent or recreate scenes and see if we can guess each other’s films from the clues. Expect some lively debate and a little festive drama!
TUESDAY 15 DECEMBER
From Saturnalia to Yuletide: Ancient Midwinter Knees-Ups!
Long before Christmas as we know it, people were gathering to feast, celebrate and bring light into the darkest days of winter. From Roman Saturnalia to ancient Yuletide customs, we’ll discover how people celebrated midwinter and why so many traditions have survived. We’ll finish our term by making winter wreaths, sharing some festive treats and celebrating the timeless joy of gathering together.
Who is The Curiosity Club for?
You might be a maker, a debater or a history lover. You might love to tell stories or collect cool facts, or be fascinated by something we haven’t even heard of yet. This is a group for young people who might not want to sit at a desk learning about something they’re not interested in, but will enjoy spending a few hours deep diving into something that sparks their imagination.
You don’t need to be loud or confident or have a special subject ready to share, just come along and be curious with us!
do you know other curious folk?
The curiosity club welcomes like minded curious folk. If you have a friend that might like to join in, or is interested in one of our topics this term, why not bring them along? The more the club grows, the further we can explore different ideas!
About Rebecca Baker
I’m Rebecca — a home-educating mum, teacher, theatre-maker, lecturer and facilitator, with more than 15 years’ experience working with young people in secondary and further education.
I was also a curious kid who didn’t always find it easy to learn in straight lines. Theatre became the place where I discovered that history, literature, psychology, storytelling, imagination and all the enormous weirdness of being human could be explored together.
I’ve always been fascinated by how young people think and learn, and my teaching has centred around creating inclusive, respectful spaces where their own ideas, interests and questions are front and centre.
The Curiosity Club is the kind of learning space I would have loved to find when I was young.
