Yes, I know. Last time it was starlings. But something about a penguin colony also speaks to what I’m imagining — a small huddle that knows it belongs to something much larger.

My previous post on this was about murmurations. About how transformation doesn’t begin with reaching everyone — it begins with tending your seven neighbours. About why I’m building something small on purpose.

The response moved me. Some of you wrote and shared your stories. A few of you came to meet with me. And it confirmed something I think I already knew: there are more of us out here than it sometimes feels like, each carrying this quietly on our own.

So this month I want to say a little more about what I’m actually building — and to begin, gently, to open the door.

I’m calling it The Gathering.

I'm creating a small, intentional online community.

Somewhere to put down some of what we’re carrying. Somewhere to recover our trust in our own intuition — and our confidence in our own judgement. Somewhere to heal and recover. Somewhere to share our stories.

Whether you are in the thick of it right now, watching your child struggle today, or whether you carry the weight of what happened years ago and are still making sense of it, this is for you.

Not a sprawling Facebook group. Not somewhere full of noise and competing opinions and the particular exhaustion that comes from scrolling. Somewhere we can actually find each other.

I want to be honest about what this is and what it isn’t, because I think that matters.

What this is not

I am not an expert and I am not an authority. This will not be a place where you’re offered definitive answers, or steered gently towards deferring to someone who claims to know better than you do about your life.

I’m explicitly working against the cultural habit of looking outside ourselves — of trusting systems and institutions over our own deep knowing. We’ve all had quite enough of that.

What this is

A place to be heard. To remember what we already know. To stop carrying this alone.

I’m imagining story circles where people truly listen to one another. Monthly themes that pay attention to what matters. Live gatherings for real connection. A book club. A writing group. Guest speakers. Shared resources. Prompts for reflection and conversation.

And something harder to name than any of those things: the experience of being a member of a community — virtual at first but potentially more than that — with people who don’t need you to explain yourself from the beginning.

I’m beginning with a founder circle of just 8 to 12 members. Small enough that we can truly know each other. Small enough to be a real village rather than a crowd.

The people I’ve met who have been excluded themselves, or who have been fighting get the schools to meet their child’s needs, carry an extraordinary kind of knowledge. You’ve watched the systems fail up close. You know things — about children, about belonging, about what actually helps — that policy documents haven’t begun to capture.

I want to hear what you know.

And I want to create somewhere that knowledge can settle, deepen, and — in time — find its way into the wider conversation about what our education system could look like for all our children.

Founding membership of The Gathering will open when I have gathered the right 8 to 12 people — I’m imagining that might be sometime in the autumn, but I’m not rushing it. The right beginning matters more than a neat deadline.

If something in this is already speaking to you — if you find yourself thinking yes, this is what I’ve been needing — I’d love to hear from you now, before any of that is fixed.

Leave a comment below, or reply to this email and tell me a little of your story. What would make this genuinely valuable to you? What would make you glad to meet the other people in The Gathering?

I would love to talk with you — book a free 30 minute conversation with me here.

Book Your Free Call

Warmest wishes, Davina

🌿 Are you feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, trying to work out what to do for the best?

🌿 Maybe you survived your own educational trauma and see the patterns repeating for your child?

🌿 Do you feel isolated as a parent and wish for connections without unrealistic expectations or judgement?

🌿 Do you dream of an education system rooted in love and compassion and fit for the 21st century?

I’m creating something I wish had existed years ago: a small, intentional online community space for parents, carers & teachers of neurodivergent and gifted children who feel (or are) excluded by their schools.

Not another sprawling Facebook group but somewhere we can actually connect without the noise. Somewhere we can recover our trust in our own intuition and our confidence to advocate clearly for ourselves and for our children - for all of our children - and to find some space to heal our own exhaustion, stress and and whatever else we’re carrying.

This will be somewhere to connect, share our stories and what we have learned, and to start to heal our trauma. Somewhere to learn together about what we need and what our children need and to support each-other.

I want this to be both a sanctuary, a place to share and something more - a place where our collective wisdom contributes to the wider conversation about how education serves our children.

🪴This could be part of the village you need for yourself.

Our community could include:

• Story circles where people truly listen

• Monthly themes that speak to the reality of this journey

• Live gatherings for real connection

• Invited guests who want to hear what we have to say

• Prompts for shared reflection and conversation

Click here to make your appointment for a virtual coffee with me

I’d love to hear your story:

🌿 I want to know what would make this community valuable to you.

🌿 What would make you excited to meet the other people in the circle?

People like us know things about what children actually need.

I very much look forward to hearing from you,

Warmly, Davina

I’m creating an intentional space for a small group of us to truly know each other. To listen deeply. To recover the wisdom we’ve been told we don’t have. A space to heal together and to recover our trust in our own judgement and intuition about ourselves and about our children.

Listening to each-other. Regular rhythms. Real connection.

Have you ever seen a murmuration of starlings?

Hundreds, or even thousands, of birds moving together, creating patterns and waves of movement so complex and synchronised that it looks choreographed. Extraordinary that so many creatures can coordinate like that.

Scientists studying this phenomenon have discovered something beautiful: each bird is only paying attention to seven neighbours. That’s it. Not the whole flock. Not some master bird giving instructions. Just the seven birds closest to them.

And from that—from each bird responding to just seven others—emerges the whole enthralling dance.

I keep thinking about this as I imagine the online community I’m creating for those of us who have been impacted by exclusion or failure to included by schools.

I’m imagining that this will be both a sanctuary and something more: a place where we heal ourselves and connect with one another and a place where our collective wisdom contributes to the wider conversation about how education serves all our children.

We’re scattered everywhere. Different schools, different areas, different situations, different stories. There are thousands of us—maybe tens of thousands—experiencing this same painful isolation.

And I catch myself thinking: I should reach everyone. I should build something big enough to make a difference. Then once we feel sufficiently resourced we will be able to co-ordinate to inspire the changes that our grandchildren need.

But that’s not how murmurations work.

That’s not how anything in nature works, actually.

Here’s what I’m learning about bringing about change:

We think we need to reach everyone, impact everyone, solve everything. We think small means ineffective.

But nature shows us something different.

Small and connected creates the pattern.

Each starling doesn’t need to see the whole flock. Each bacteria doesn’t need to coordinate with every other cell . Each tree in a forest doesn’t need to connect with every other tree.

They tend their immediate connections. And the large-scale transformation emerges from that.

So here’s what I’m building:

Not a massive Facebook group where your voice gets lost. Not a organisation trying to reach every parent. Not a campaign promising to fix everything.

A founder members group of 8-12 members who will be able to truly listen to each other, support each other and share wisdom with each other.

This is where we will start.

Paying attention to our seven neighbours. And they to their seven.

And slowly a larger pattern will emerge. Not because we have planned every detail, but because we each tend our seven neighbours

The parents of excluded children I’ve met know things about what children actually need. You’ve watched the system fail. You’ve seen what happens when education is rigid instead of responsive. You know things that policy makers and researchers don’t know.

And individuals who've experienced not-belonging in school themselves. And maybe beyond school. This is also for you. If anyone has wisdom to share it is us.

But we’ve been isolated. Scattered. Exhausted. Each of us trying to solve this alone in our own crisis.

What if we stopped trying to reach everyone and started by truly connecting with just seven neighbours?

What if we trusted that the pattern—the murmuration—would take care of itself in its own time?

Our job is simply to tend our neighbours.

And I know that everything in nature—from bacteria to birds to forests—shows us that transformation doesn’t come from isolated individuals trying harder.

It comes from tending the connections right around us, consistently and well.

So I’m looking for my seven neighbours. Those of us who are ready to stop carrying this alone. Ready to do something small, intentional, and sustained instead of big, scattered, and exhausting.

Would you like to talk about what that could look like? I would love to hear your story and your thoughts.

Find out more here

Let’s start with what’s right in front of us and next to us. The murmuration will follow.