Brewing Opportunity
How Coffee Is Changing Lives at Five Acre Wood
Five Acre Wood School: A Centre for Opportunity
In the heart of Maidstone, Kent, one of the sites of Five Acre Wood School sits among the rural landscape. Five Acre Wood School is an educational hub for over 850 students with Profound, Severe and Complex Needs, including Autism and has more than 500 staff across multiple sites, with the Loose site on Boughton Road, being the largest. Their Ofsted reports are Outstanding and they are a Flagship School for the Inclusion Quality Mark, having been awarded the IQM National Inclusion Champions award in 23/24; one of eight schools to be awarded this and the only SEN school!
The school is lit with infectious energy and passion for opportunity and development for all their students, led by Head Teachers Tim Williams at the Boughton Road site, Kirstie Hemingway at the Satellite Provisions and Peggy Murphy as Principal. There is so much opportunity and a priceless educational experience for every child preparing them for life.
A Culture of Opportunity and Innovation
During my first visit to the school I was blown away by the work that was already going on there. Not least, the retired ‘freefall lifeboat’ that was acquired from a specialist company based in Aberdeen. It had been based in the North Sea and was last in service in approximately 2022.
The boat has been renamed FAWtilus and converted into a mental health hub- redesigning what it means to ‘save a life’ using the same vehicle. This is used by their specialist counsellor and play therapist to give children a safe and engaging space to express themselves and explore therapy.
Just besides FAWtilus, stood an impressive front half of an aeroplane, 7FAW7. The retired plane has a new lease of life as an accessible library; pilot seats at the front, (because who doesn’t want to pretend to fly a plane!), colourful reading spaces and an audiobook nook at the rear. A short crawl through the luggage hold door reveals a secret sensory room set up with lights and props for interactive story time.
Walking around the school I was not only blown away by the exciting outdoor play areas (with trampolines!) but you can also see a double decker bus converted to softplay (the FAWbulous bus), an old minibus converted into a gaming zone, named by the students as the ‘pooh bus/posh bus’. Tim also explained to me they have a caravan too (the FAWlife Lodge), which is used to teach the teenagers crucial life skills like cooking, and making a bed to prepare them for independent living. The creative use of space and resources brings an exciting new perspective for education of children who would not typically reach mainstream ‘milestones’, proving that with the right environment, every child can flourish.
The FAWrient Express Café
If I wasn’t already inspired by this point, in front of the school, there is an old railway train on a track which has been transformed into a gorgeous cafe space which was launched in October 2024. The FAWrient Express is a unique train carriage café developed in partnership with Costa Coffee. The café serves as a hospitality training academy, offering pupils with profound and complex learning difficulties hands-on experience and skills for future employment. This innovative project aims to foster inclusion, build confidence, and tackle the employment gap faced by individuals with learning difficulties, while creating a vibrant community hub. What a wonderful thing to think that this has been made possible because of Costa’s customers enjoying their lattes!
This cafe has brought wonderful opportunities to the students including future employment, work experience in other businesses and training with both soft life skills and core employment and hospitality skills. It has also been a life-line for other students and their parents too.
Dads who would previously wait in their cars isolated, connect in the space after drop-offs and now go to the gym together too! Children from within the school also visit the cafes and learn the key skills of how to behave in public shared spaces which has resulted in reports from parents that they can now confidently visit public cafes with their children.
The Vision for a School-Based Roastery
After being blown away, and quite honestly getting emotional about what I had seen and heard, I met with Tim and discussed his vision of seeing the FAWrient Express being expanded into a small roastery which could supply the FAWrient Express and sell retail bags of coffee to parents, staff, locals and small businesses. It was a no-brainer to use my experience to make their vision come to life.
Our Mission and Objectives
We started out with a business plan and mission statement and key objectives:
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‘To empower SEN students with skills and confidence through real-life coffee roasting and business experience, fostering independence and preparing them for life beyond school.’
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To establish a small batch roastery in the school grounds
To integrate the roastery with the school cafe and curriculum
To offer students hands-on experience in real business functions
To create a sustainable income stream for the school through retail coffee sales
To increase community engagements and awareness of SEN capabilities
To connect more with local businesses to give students further connections and work experience opportunities/career opportunities.
Building Platform FAW
The roastery was built at the front of the train as a small ‘ticket office’, by JEM Construction, which has been named Platform FAW. It displays a gorgeous logo in line with all the other branding around the site and is built with the finest attention to detail.
We ordered all the necessary equipment to run the roastery like any other speciality roaster, with a roaster, grinder, heat sealer and all the quality control equipment.
We decided to go for a semi-automatic roaster, in an Allio Bullet. This was a really important factor, that the students had the possibility for it to ‘go wrong’. A fully automatic roaster would be easier to use, but the agency the students would have would be limited.
Automatic roasters follow the profile perfectly every time and we wanted the students to not only understand the roasting process, but also be proud that the coffee they were selling was good because of their skills, not technology. Roasting also requires focus, consistency and care, transferable skills for any form of employment.
This roastery is not just for ‘show’ or because coffee is ‘trendy’; the purpose is authentic: to genuinely upskill and give experience to students. There is also room within the roastery for us to purchase and fit additional Allio Bullet Roasters as we grow too.
In line with striving for excellence, all students and staff must wear a hairnet and apron when inside the roastery and we have factored in a quality control station. Kitted out with kettles, scales, cupping bowls for sensory quality control and moisture meters and colour meters for quantitative quality control to ensure that every batch meets FAW standards.
Breaking Down Employment Barriers
It might seem like a small project, but government reports say that less than 6% of people with SEN were in employment in 2021 (NHS digital, 2021), which is an unacceptable statistic that Five Acre Wood is determined to challenge. Different students will struggle with different activities and something as simple as wearing a hairnet for working might be a sensory challenge for someone with profound, severe or complex needs. If a student can get accustomed to wearing one regularly before leaving school, that is one barrier that has been successfully broken down.
Through the roastery we will also integrate a curriculum that includes Science, Technology, Maths, Business Studies, Geography and English too. Throughout the year Hope Espresso will be working with the students to help them obtain their internationally recognised SCA Roasting Foundation and Intermediate Certificates as well as working with the Baristas from the FAWrient Express to get their SCA Barista Foundation and Intermediate Certificates.
The roastery and training programme will launch officially in September, so this summer entails finalising the curriculum, arranging the packaging and ordering the green coffee through direct-trade relationships. With these trade partnerships, we hope to be able to support SEN projects in the origins we buy from as well, making it full circle. If you would like to get involved or support the project at all, please reach out to Hope Espresso.
The Preparing FAW Adulthood Hub
The roastery and cafe are going to be located in a ‘Preparing FAW Adulthood Hub’ which will be accessible to the public. The hub will include a Farm Shop, ‘Peggys FAWtique’, where local produce and products made on site will be available for sale, an art workshop with 3D printers, and talks of other projects like a laundrette are in the air, all united with the same vision: giving the students as many opportunities and experiences for creating the best life possible.
What’s brewing at Five Acre Wood is far more than just coffee, it’s a powerful blend of hope, opportunity, and transformation. The FAWrient Express and Platform FAW are shining examples of what happens when community, creativity and care come together. At Hope Espresso, we believe coffee can be a force for good - and this project proves it. By roasting beans, these students are also roasting outdated ideas about what people with additional needs can achieve. Every cup tells a story - of confidence gained, skills mastered, and futures changed. And we’re just getting started.
