AOA Surf School
Kids, adults and adaptive surf lessons in Blyth!
22/07/2024
We have gift cards!
If you enjoyed your surf you can gift the stoke to your friends and family members 💙
21/07/2024
Last couple of spaces available on our first summer camp!
17/07/2024
Kids’ and adult surf lessons running throughout the summer holidays. Want some more time to develop your surfing skills?-Take a look at our 3 day summer camp!
https://www.adaptiveoceanacademy.com/home
04/07/2024
Duck dive into our Summer Surf Camp! Join us from July 22nd-24th for an exhilarating 3-day course. Surfing is fantastic for kids mental and physical health, offering a fun way to stay active and boost their confidence. Plus, it’s the perfect way to get them out of the house during the summer holidays. Book now and take advantage of our exclusive introductory offer.
02/07/2024
Summer surf open for booking!
https://www.adaptiveoceanacademy.com/adaptive-surf-booking-page
25/06/2024
Kids, adults and adaptive lessons open for bookings, weekends and school holidays!
https://www.adaptiveoceanacademy.com/adaptive-surf-booking-page
15/04/2024
The sun is shining and we’re back in the water every Sunday!
To book a lesson visit https://www.adaptiveoceanacademy.com/adaptive-surf-booking-page
If you’ve been on a lesson with AOA previously please contact us before so we can get you booked on the right course.
03/03/2024
Perhaps the biggest news we’ve had to share with you all!
The National Lottery Community Fund have granted Adaptive Ocean Academy a huge £18,000 to run adaptive surf lessons this summer!
The impact this is going to have on the surf school is immeasurable, everything has been self funded until now and sometimes the ideas have run quicker than the budget. We can’t wait to share all of the exciting projects we can now get going with 🩷
31/01/2024
We specialise in disability and autism surf coaching, which means we are experienced in tailoring sessions to individual needs. We are knowledgeable about disability and supporting people in finding their capabilities.
Our calm and motivating approach uses the social model of disability, we adapt our environment to take away barriers in watersports.
"Amazing opportunity!! Our son has loved every minute and the hour flies by. We are so grateful for the opportunity and it has inspired us, as a family, to take to the water too!!"
Book now:
https://www.adaptiveoceanacademy.com/adaptive-surf-booking-page
23/10/2023
Help raise £500 to help fund an adaptive surfboard for Adaptive Ocean Academy & help to give young people of all abilities the opportunity to surf. Weʼre raising money to help fund an adaptive surfboard for Adaptive Ocean Academy & help to give young people of all abilities the opportunity to surf.. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.
07/10/2023
The lovely are spending every Sunday in October at the beach with us, selling their delicious dog treats (Arthur approved 🐾), to fundraise for an adaptive surfboard.
We love the community spirit and are so grateful they have chosen to help us with their fundraising, it means a lot!
The donation link is in our bio 🥰
07/10/2023
From tomorrow the incredible Arthur’s Eco Club will be at Blyth Beach with us, at our normal spot behind the Battery, selling these delicious dog biscuits to help us raise money for an adaptive surf board. They’ll be with us every Sunday until the end of October and we’re doing a sponsored beach clean in November. We have a fundraising goal of £500.
The board we are looking at getting has a seat attachment and will be fantastic for helping us extend our reach to people physical disabilities.
The link for donations is https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/surfproject?utm_term=828eBKKAD
10/09/2023
The vibe of the North East has been wonderful all day, the sun has been shining and everybody has been so smiley. Never seen the beach so packed as 60,000 people came from around the world for the Great North Run.
Blyth is a bit further North but we had a lush view of the red arrows and took an accidental detour through the festivities this morning.
So proud to call this place home!
Thank you to the lovely for the photos!
23/08/2023
We've just added more adaptive surf coaching for the end of the summer holidays!
20/08/2023
12/08/2023
Lovely relaxed conditions today and some really fun sessions ☺️☀️
29/07/2023
At Blyth South Beach, on the promenade, in front of the Battery, every Saturday and Sunday throughout the school holidays ☀️🏖️
12/07/2023
Adaptive Ocean Academy North East surf school for Autistic people and people with disabilities. Project Surf offers adaptable surf lessons tailored to meet anybody's needs.
Hi, I’m Brittany and I’ve been asked to give a little back story to why I founded Adaptive Ocean Academy;
I’m a 25 year old Psychology grad and was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia when I was 19. To try to help myself I did a bunch of research on neurodivergent brains. It was around this time that I started working in the disability/autism sector and became hooked on surfing. Everything kind of came together when I moved to the North East and wanted to start teaching some of the people I was working with how to surf -I could feel how much it settled my mind, improved my spatial awareness and balance etc. and thought it might be a fun activity for others too.
I’ve collected some videos of my surfing progress (on instagram) over the past 5 years to show the process of moving from beginner to intermediate. Surfing does not come naturally to me, probably partially to do with dyspraxia, I’ve definitely got my own ‘style’. I don’t think it comes naturally to a lot of people though! I can however say I absolutely adore surfing and it has added so much depth to my life, from meeting nearly all of my friends, to improving my mental and physical health, and finding utter quiet and calm in the ocean.
My goal is to bring surfing into the lives of as many people as I can and share some of the joy that I can’t really put into words. I work full-time, so I run the surf school on Saturdays and I’m working non-stop to get funding to run more free sessions. If you want to enquire about lessons please email me at [email protected]. If you or your business want to get involved with fundraising/donations please click this link https://shorturl.at/a0269 or email.
Thanks for reading this far- Brit x
27/02/2023
We would like to reintroduce ourselves as Adaptive Ocean Academy! You may have noticed that we have recently undergone a rebranding process. While we cherish the countless happy memories that we have created under the name Project Surf, we are also looking ahead to our future and how we can seamlessly integrate with other brands that we collaborate with. This includes ensuring that our logo can be easily used on merchandise and hopefully on a van soon 🤞🏻
Although the Project Surf branding is very special to us, we recognise the importance of adapting to our changing needs and expanding horizons. We put a great deal of effort into brainstorming names and designing logos for Project Surf, and it will always hold a place in our hearts. It is where we started and met many wonderful people. Here are some of our favourite moments as Project Surf!
07/01/2023
05/01/2023
A huge thank you to South Beach Surf School for all of their help getting my instructor hours in before launching Project Surf.
Everything was a bit of a rush at the end of last year, getting hours, the beach lifeguard qualification, and roughly 1001 other safety precautions in place. Max was so patient and I learnt a great deal about instructing from him. He’s absolutely one of the best instructors around!
10/11/2022
Make sure you don't miss out on our new session releases by subscribing to our mailing list!
We release sessions by email before we put them out on social media.
31/10/2022
Some incredible sessions this weekend with and some very talented young surfers 🤙🏻
We're running some fully funded, adaptive surf courses this weekend. Funds raised go towards putting on these sessions and purchasing equipment to continually improve our ability to adapt.
Visit https://www.surfproject.co.uk/fundraising for more information.
20/10/2022
You can book online here:
Book Online | Project Surf Take a look at our exciting and diverse course schedule. All sessions are adaptive to meet the needs of any participant.
19/10/2022
Welcome back to Project Surf! For those of you who don’t know us yet, we are a neurodiversity surf school based in the North East of England. We’re reopening for the last couple of weekends of this season in Blyth!
We recognise the barriers that make sport widely inaccessible to autistic people, and the risks of inactivity. Our goal is to tackle these barriers with a variety of lessons, designed to adapt to the needs of anybody who visits us. We are, of course, going to continue to run our well loved volunteer-led group sessions (coming summer 2023), and in addition will be offering one-to-one surf coaching.
A growing body of psychological research is pointing towards the therapeutic benefits surfing has to offer for various groups, including people with mental health disorders, vulnerable children and people with disabilities. We even conducted some research ourselves, where we found numerous positive accounts of our groups involvement in participant’s mental wellbeing, social wellbeing, sensorimotor development and sensory integration.
To book a session with us please visit our website https://www.surfproject.co.uk/ . We require all participants to take part in an introductory one-to-one session. This allows us to determine the most suitable sessions for participants needs and goals, whilst providing us a calm environment to introduce ourselves and teaching style. Participants should be aged 6+. In our experience our funded group reaches capacity quickly, to avoid disappointment follow our social media pages, where we will announce the release of new sessions first.
We have all of the equipment you’ll need to keep warm as we go into the winter but recommend that you bring some warm clothing and maybe a warm drink down to the beach to have after the session.
Thank you so much to everybody who has supported us in improving autism access in surfing so far, we can’t wait to welcome more of you to our community!
17/06/2021
15/04/2021
We’re back for summer!
Next month we’re going to be rolling out a couple of new surf therapy sessions.
None of the great progress we’ve seen up until now would have been possible without our wonderful volunteers. With plans to put on more sessions we’re going to need loads more of you!
The mentor system is a great structure for building lasting friendships and giving peace of mind to participants about their safety in the ocean. Mentors are an integral part of what we do!
If you love surfing or working amongst groups of people with special educational needs and disabilities, this could be a great way to spend your summer evenings.
If you would like to sign up please email [email protected]
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Contact the business
Telephone
Address
Blyth South Beach
Blyth
NE243PG
Opening Hours
| Saturday | 09:00 - 17:30 |
| Sunday | 09:00 - 17:30 |