SelfDesign® has been working to build cultural bridges across and throughout our own organization. Our efforts are driven by the more than 80 recommendations put forwards by SelfDesign’s Indigenous education task force, comprised of a First Nations elder, a First Nations SelfDesign parent and learner, and SelfDesign educators including those with Indigenous heritage.
In February 2019, SelfDesign® Learning Community received a very positive performance accreditation from Cognia (formerly called AdvancEd), a non-profit, non-partisan organization that has been accrediting schools for over 100 years, with a commitment to ensure schools are ‘good enough’ and to help them improve.
SelfDesign® Learning Community provides an inclusive, personalized, and flexible approach to education for approximately 2,000 learners from kindergarten to grade 12 each year. The school offers competency-driven, concept-, project- and inquiry-based learning opportunities that are meaningful and relevant to learners -- including support and opportunity for learners like Ava to prepare a submission for contests such as CBC’s First Page Youth Writing Competition.
At SelfDesign®, we believe that every learner has a unique voice, and our inclusive kindergarten to grade 12 program is committed to listening to each and every child – however they are able to communicate. Every learner with special needs is unique, and we reflect this by providing programming that is personalized or individualized to each learner.
SelfDesign® Learning Community is one of the largest independent online learning schools in British Columbia. If you are interested in providing your child with a SelfDesign learning experience, here is a list of the documents you need to have in place to enrol – and re-enrol.
In order to satisfy our contractual relationship with the B.C. Ministry of Education and to ensure that our learning program is clear for learners and families, our work and learning together is guided by 18 program agreements. We make these commitments to each other in order to best support learners’ and families’ full participation in SelfDesign®.
SelfDesign® Learning Community is an online learning and personalized learning school. One of the key tenets of our approach is that learning takes place at home, online and in the community. If you are considering enrolling your child in SelfDesign, we recommend that you give some thought to the considerations outlined in this post.
Whether it's around sexual orientation and gender identity, or issues related to the interconnected nature of different aspects of identity and diversity – such as race, religion and ability – SelfDesign® has always strived to be, and prided itself on being, an inclusive place where learners are comfortable to be themselves authentically.
Meet Sierra, a 17-year-old SelfDesign® learner who has already managed to do a TEDx talk and become a teacher of carbon farming and carbon sequestration. This is one of the many examples of how SelfDesign enables young people to learn by pursuing their passions.
These 10 tips from SelfDesign® Learning Foundation capture the successful strategies, approaches and best practices that our B.C. certified educators rely on to ensure learners are learning, meet Ministry of Education requirements, and are engaged in their own learning.
