Dear Village Hub Families,

What a start to the year! Our learners have come in with energy, curiosity and plenty of ideas about how they want this year to go. Here's a look at what's been happening: the building blocks of their learning, what's coming up, and the ways they're already shaping our community.

Adelantes

Every week, learners have the opportunity to attend Adelante workshops based on their interests. These workshops run in 5-week cycles and are mostly learner-led.

This month, we are offering: Soap Making, Painting, Dungeaons and Dragons, and 3-D design.

Studios

Learners also take part in Studios, where they learn from an expert in a chosen field. Just like Adelante, they select their studio based on interest.

This menu selection for studios includes programming, cooking, theatre/improv, architecture, music, game design, portraits, and patterns.

📢 Announcements!

🍴 Lunch Services

Show your Learnlife pride and support our hubs

The Learnlife Merch Store is (drum roll…) live at merch.learnlife.com 

Hoodies, t-shirts, tote bags and more for kids and adults, featuring the beautiful Learnlife logo. Every purchase goes straight back to your child's hub.

We’ve tried to be kind to the planet where we can, including natural and recycled materials with organic options, and shipping from EU suppliers to cut down the distance your order travels.

Grab something for when you drop the kids at school, or for the whole family.

Head to merch.learnlife.com

📅 Important Dates

👀 Snippets of Learnlife

Learner as Co-Creators: Our Community Standards

At the start of every year, we don't hand our learners a list of rules. We ask them a question instead: What kind of community do we want to be part of?

For the first few weeks, learners at the Village Hub explored that question together. In small groups and whole-hub circles, they talked about what makes them feel safe, respected, and ready to learn, and what gets in the way. They shared, listened, rewrote, and voted. What came out of it is a set of community standards that belongs to them.

Why we do it this way

When young people help create the agreements they live by, three things happen:

• They understand them. A standard you debated and wrote yourself isn't an abstract rule. You know why it's there.

• They own them. Learners hold each other accountable in a way no adult-imposed rule can match. "That's not what we agreed" carries real weight when it comes from a peer.

• They practise skills that matter far beyond school. Negotiating, compromising, disagreeing well, speaking up for yourself and for others: this is civic life in miniature, and our learners are more than ready for it.

The research agrees. Students who have a real voice in shaping their environment show stronger belonging, more motivation and fewer behaviour issues. 

Spanish and Catalan at the Village Hub

We have had a few families ask about how the accreditation process will change how much Catalan and Spanish we offer at the Village Hub. As part of our Spanish accreditation, Village Hub will be required to offer a set number of hours in both Spanish and Catalan, roughly three hours per language per week. For now, we're doing a very soft start. Hours are still flexible and depend on each learner's individual plan. We are also trying to make the increase in language hours more studio-style sessions, in which learners can choose which language they work in. We are modelling this approach from the Urban Hub. Most importantly, nothing is changing overnight, and there are no decisions regarding ESO access for families to make right now. We'll set aside time at our next Parent Coffee on Friday to explain what the requirements will look like and how we're approaching them and to answer your questions. We'd love to see you there.

Conversation Starters: Beyond "How was your day?"

Many families have asked how to get your learners talking about what they're doing at the hub. Here are some to try this month:

Their choices

• Which Studio options did you choose, and what made you pick them?

• Which Adelante did you go for? What are you hoping to get out of it?

Their projects

• What have you chosen to ferment in your Scientific Thinking microbiology project? What do you think will happen? (Creators and Explorers)

• Which habitat or animal are you researching for your Explora Moon project? What's the most surprising thing you've found so far? (Pioneers)

• What is your passion project about? What steps are you taking to make it happen?

Their reading and language

• Tell me about the book you're reading in Literature Circles. Who's your favorite character, and why? (Explorers and Creators)

• Try this together: pick a song you both like and hunt for similes, metaphors, and personification. Your learner can guide you! (Pioneers)

Hope you have a great weekend. 

– The Village Hub Team