The Hungarian school immersing urban students in nature
REAL School Budapest, an not-for-profit independent school for ages 5 to 14 in Budapest, Hungary, has integrated an ethos of regeneration into every aspect of school life, enabling its diverse international students to actively restore ecosystems within their community, helping them contribute to environmental action in the wider world. In cities like Budapest, many children grow up disconnected from nature. While they learn about environmental challenges in the classroom, they often don’t have the opportunity to engage practically, creating a gap between awareness and action. To bridge this gap and, rather than teaching sustainability as a subject, the school has built a structure where every decision, from energy use to curriculum design, is aligned with one principle: does this help life thrive?
With environmental education embedded into how students learn, how the campus is designed, and how the community can become involved, students are immersed in a living experience that shapes how they think, act and care for the planet.
Founded in 2019, the school has adopted a project-based learning pedagogy - “Dream to Reality” - that connects academic learning with real environmental challenges. Every project involves a real question, involves real places and real people, and produces a real product that is then showcased to real audiences. The curriculum design asked a simple question: “What’s worth learning to help youth dream and build a beautiful world?” The structured REAL School ANSWER curriculum integrates Academics, Nature, Smart Technology, Wellbeing, Entrepreneurship, and Regeneration.
Through long-term projects, students are encouraged to move from observation to action, designing and implementing practical applications like composting systems, seed banks, wildlife habitats, and regenerative landscape projects. As focused ‘doers’, student-led initiatives are creating a deep connection with nature and sustainability in spite of the school’s urban environment.
What makes the model truly immersive for students is its weekly focus on nature. Every Wednesday, students spend a full day outside of the classroom, exploring forests, riverbanks, and urban ecosystems regardless of weather conditions. This consistent exposure gives them a deeper connection to nature, which awakens their senses and strengthens their empathy, curiosity, and deep respect toward the environment, while still entrenching scientific learning. Being in nature builds care for nature, which, in time, turns connection into action.
The environment is also championed across the campus, which runs on 100% renewable energy, and through a student- and family-led initiative, the school community has reduced energy consumption by 30%. School meals are completely plant-based. Its in-house plant-based canteen, ‘The Planteen’, feeds the school and the surrounding community daily. With over 100,000 meals served, it is significantly reducing carbon emissions and water use, while encouraging more sustainable habits beyond the school gates. The physical environment of the school is treated as a living ecosystem with an outdoor playground and learning space that supports over 80 native plant species, creating habitats for birds and insects in the urban setting. Students are directly involved in maintaining and developing these spaces, from managing compost systems to monitoring biodiversity. This spring, the school’s community planted a Miyawaki forest on campus to improve local microclimate and further increase biodiversity.
Partnerships with NGOs, local universities and international initiatives have been key to the success of the approach. Through the EU-funded Erasmus+ CLARITY project, REAL School has helped develop tools and methodologies that support climate resilience education across Europe, empowering other educators to move their students from climate anxiety to action in their own contexts.
Learner success is measured by both what impact students make in their projects and how they transition into wider systems. Making young people feel that they matter is just as important as enabling them to confidently move and thrive in British, American and Hungarian education systems. This same sense of purpose is reflected in the staff team, where teachers who align with the school’s mission feel they are active contributors to something deeply purposeful, and tend to stay. Under the school’s ‘teal’ distributed leadership model, the vast majority of decisions are made without central leadership, reflecting a high level of trust and autonomy and creating a consistent, values-driven learning environment where their voices are heard.
