Seagulls — a learning stay by the sea, Kannur

Why Seagulls

My own daughter is homeschooled, and being with her — along with many, many children over my years at The Valley School — is what brought me here. A child gains knowledge through experience, effortlessly. Books are there to refer to, of course. Understanding doesn't only come from drill or rote; when the world itself is the lesson, it is simply absorbed.

Saqib Chinoy · founder & teacher

01 — How a stay unfolds

The learning begins long before you arrive, and outlasts the journey home.

A stay is not a holiday with lessons bolted on. It is one continuous piece of work — planned together, lived through, reflected on, and made into something your child keeps.

01

Before you arrive · the first assignment

Planning the journey, together

Over a few weeks beforehand, your child and I plan the trip itself — the route, a working budget, the questions worth chasing, and a guiding theme chosen around their interests and level. The planning is the first piece of real work: research, logistics, a little economics, and a sense of ownership before a single bag is packed.

02

The stay · living and learning

Days that move between the kitchen, the shore and the lanes

Mornings might start at the produce market or in tide pools; afternoons follow the day's hands-on study. Meals are cooked together — shopping, measuring, tasting, washing up — because a kitchen is one of the best classrooms there is. Activities are built around your child, never pulled off a shelf.

03

The debrief · making sense of it

Sitting down with what was noticed

We gather the raw material — notes, sketches, photographs, half-formed questions — and I help your child find the thread: what surprised them, what connects to what they already study, what is worth saying. This is where a week of experiences becomes understanding.

04

The artefact · something to keep

A made thing for the portfolio

Every stay ends with a finished piece — a travelogue, a field journal, an illustrated brochure, a small study. It goes into your child's portfolio as genuine, documented evidence of learning: the kind of work that shows a curious mind at work, not a box ticked.

A child sketching in a notebook on the rocks while an elder sits looking out to the sea at golden hour

02 — What the coast can teach

Kannur is the syllabus.

Each stay is anchored to one or two themes, pitched to your child's age and level. A few of the threads this coast offers — every one of them a doorway into a school subject, approached from the real world.

See the full annual project plan →

fig. 1the morning market, town-side

The market economy

How produce is priced, sold and traded; supply, demand and the working day of a market town.

Business & Economics

A red dragonfly resting on a granite ledge, watched up close

Tide pools & the shoreline

Close observation of coastal life — habitats, adaptation and the rhythm of the tides, recorded by hand.

Biology & Environmental Science

fig. 3handloom, Kannur weave

The Kannur handloom

Pattern, fibre and the economics of a cottage industry that clothes the region and travels the world.

Geography, Design & Commerce

fig. 4theyyam, ritual season

Theyyam & the calendar

Ritual art, oral history and belief — how a community remembers itself through performance and season.

History & the Humanities

Home-baked bread dusted with sugar arranged around a glass dish of apricot jam

The kitchen as laboratory

Measurement, heat, fermentation and flavour — chemistry and culture you can eat at the end of the lesson.

Chemistry & Life Skills

Evening sky over the Arabian Sea, sun breaking through cloud, figures wading at the shoreline

Maps, tides & monsoon

Reading the coast — weather, navigation and the geography that shapes how people here live and move.

Geography & Mathematics

fig. 7night sky, offshore

Reading the stars

Away from city glare the coast opens onto a full sky — constellations, the moon and the tides, and how sailors once found their way by starlight.

Astronomy & Physics

A palm-lined backwater with tiled houses along the far bank

Backwaters & exploration

Kayaking the backwaters, plotting the route by GPS, and a ferry down the Valapattanam river — fieldwork that doubles as adventure.

Geography & Fieldcraft

Visitors on the Kannur beach in season, families at the water's edge under a big sky

The visitor economy

How a beach town earns from travellers — the seasons, what a homestay charges and why, and the real trade-offs tourism brings to a coast.

Business, Economics & Tourism

A temple pond at dusk, old tiled houses and palms reflected in the water under a soft sky

Temples, palaces & forts

Many families come to the Malabar coast for its ancient temples, palaces, forts and places of worship — Parassinikkadavu, St. Angelo Fort, the old shrines of Kannur and beyond. We read their architecture, history and ritual on the ground, and a visit can be built into your family trip.

History, Architecture & Belief

03 — Who you'll be learning with

A teacher first, and only a teacher.

Portrait of Saqib Chinoy, glasses pushed up, smiling in a café booth

I'm Saqib Chinoy. For the better part of a decade I've taught in classrooms that don't look like most classrooms — six years at The Valley School, part of the Krishnamurti Foundation India, building discovery-led, project-based learning for children aged twelve to eighteen, and more recently teaching Cambridge Business Studies at IGCSE, AS and A Level.

Before any of that, I spent fifteen years in science and business — research, corporate strategy, and bringing new things to market in Singapore and India. That is why my teaching tends to start from the real world and work back towards a coursebook, rather than the other way around.

I've designed original curricula and case studies, mentored students who still keep in touch as working adults, and helped children moving between boards find their feet. Designing learning for one child at a time, around who they actually are, is the part of this work I love most. Seagulls is that, by the sea.

Licensed Teacher, Secondary Teaching Council of New Zealand

2023 – 2026

Bachelor of Education — Grade A+ Exemplary Bangalore University

B.Ed.

Cambridge Business Studies IGCSE 0450 · AS & A Level 9609

IGCSE · A Level

BSc Applied Sciences, With Merit — Biotechnology National University of Singapore

BSc

Secondary & Senior School, Grades 6–12 The Valley School · Krishnamurti Foundation India

Six years

Intellectual Property for Teachers — Grade A WIPO, Geneva

Certificate

Child Safeguarding Training — Certificate of Completion UNICEF

Mar 2026

Scientific research, strategy & business Singapore & India — life sciences, consulting, innovation

15 years

References and a teaching portfolio available on request.

04 — The house, the table, the shore

One family at a time, by design.

The programme is built around your child, not a group — so a stay is private, unhurried, and shaped to you. Small multi-family cohorts can be arranged on request and will need planning.

The house

A rented home a short walk from the beach in Kannur — bedrooms enough for a family, a kitchen we'll use every day, and room to spread out, dry sketches and make things. Photographs to follow.

Meals, cooked together

A market run and a shared kitchen are part of nearly every day. A wholly vegetarian kitchen, local produce, recipes that double as lessons, and dietary needs accommodated with notice.

Who it's for

Homeschooling and worldschooling families in India and abroad — whether you follow a board, an alternative philosophy, or your own path. A parent or guardian stays throughout.

How long

Typically three to five days, flexible to your travel. Longer durations can be planned, using Kannur as a starting point for surrounding towns and cities. Dates and rates are agreed per family — enquire for a quote built around your stay.

Getting to Kannur

Kannur International Airport (CNN) is close by — within an hour by cab — with rail and road links up and down the Malabar coast. I'll help you plan the approach as part of the trip itself.

What to bring

Curiosity, comfortable clothes and a notebook. Materials, the plan, and the teaching are mine to provide.

06 — Start a conversation

Tell me about your child.

There's no booking button and no instant checkout — by design. Every stay is planned with the family it's for, so the best first step is simply to write. Tell me a little about your child, what you're hoping for, and roughly when you'd like to come. I'll reply personally.

Or write directly hello@seagulls-kannur.in