• Self-directed, curious young people aged 11–16 who want to explore ideas, build skills and connect with others.

• Young people who feel passionate about making changes to the world and being a force for good.

• Young people who are confident enough to take on big dreams (when enough support and guidance has been scaffolded in).

• This programme is designed for self-motivated, self-directed young people. It may not be suitable for those who have just left school.

• Those who value agency, respect, community and real-world learning.

Every young person is different, and there’s no single “right time.” What matters most is curiosity and a willingness to give it a try. Your teen doesn’t need to be confident, outgoing, or already “sorted” — in fact, many young people work with us because they aren’t sure yet and want support exploring who they are and what excites them.

If your teen can:

• Join a group call (even if they’re quiet at first)

• Show up most weeks

• Be open to experimenting with new ideas and ways of learning

…then they’re ready to take part.

And if you’re not sure, that’s okay — we’re happy to chat with you and your teen before the programme starts to see if it feels like the right fit.

Yes — shy or anxious teens are very welcome. Because the group is intentionally small and supportive, there is space for quieter voices and gentle participation.

If your child is completely new to self-direction, this may feel like a big leap. We encourage families to consider whether your teen is ready to take initiative, explore their own interests, and participate in shaping the community. If they are curious but hesitant, this can still be a good fit — especially with encouragement from home.

We are welcome to talking to you in more detail about the programme to ensure that it is a good fit for your family.

It’s completely normal for young people to find commitment challenging at times. That’s one reason we include both group calls and individual calls — so if your child is finding things difficult, we can work with them to create a plan that supports their needs. While we’ve designed the programme to run in a particular way, we’re not dogmatic about it — we’re always open to making adjustments where it helps a young person thrive.

At the same time, we do ask everyone to commit to a full term. If your child decides to leave partway through, we ask that you still cover the fees for the remainder of that term. This keeps the group stable and ensures fairness for everyone.

This offering blends the best of my discoveries over time. Tweens and teens need community, hence why we are meeting together at the start of every term for an intensive two day residential. During this time as well as create learning plans and setting out our goals with mentor support we will be getting to know each other, building friendships and the foundations of our online community.

Every week in the first term we will meet online as a group for two hours to go through an open intention-reflection cycle together. By working with the garage door up like this we create accountability partners, but also give the young people opportunities to give each other feedback and advice to help push peers forward on the project. However, psychological safety is a key part of reflecting on a project for growth for many young people and so we will meet more intimately once a week for an hour to provide mentor support one to one in an environment that is safer for some to open up about their plans, development goals and struggles towards achieving these.

Parents do not attend the residential. You are expected to arrange your own travel to and from the residential. You would drop your young person off and then come back in two days to collect them.

Parents do form part of the community, but it is important that young people feel they have the space to explore their projects on their own.

At the end of each term we will ask each young person to present their project in a showcase event online to the whole community. This will be presented to all other young people and their parents.

We are also happy to meet each family for an hour near the end of each term to reflect together on the learning journey. We will talk to the young person in the week before this to ascertain how they want that conversation to go.

Each week there is a two hour group call. In this call each person is given time to share their progress from the previous week. Prior to the meeting they will reflect on a few questions:

• What went well

• What didn’t go well

• What they didn’t manage to achieve.

After sharing with the group there will be a chance for their peers to ask them questions, or make suggestions. As a mentor I guide the discussion to ensure an equal balance of challenge and celebration.

As well as the group call each young person will also have a one hour individual mentoring call in which we can dive deeper into their project providing more specific guidance around what is working for them, what needs unblocking, provide strategies and tips for helping them towards their aims, and collaboratively research their topics together to provide an updated plan for their learning journey in the coming weeks.

This programme is designed to create space for young people to think holistically about their life. We will encourage them to think broadly about their development plans and goals, including friendships, family, life goals, hobbies as well as academic successes, whilst developing systems thinking approaches to how these all interlink together to create a good life.

They will deepen their knowledge of a self-chosen subject/topic in the first term and they will learn how to imagine, manage and deliver a project that has a positive impact on their community.

As a team we offer three years of experience of creating self-directed learning programmes with teenagers and years of working in a corporate environment as a champion for creating high functioning teams that emphasises individual agency.

• Experience a broad range of tools for planning, developing goals, setting intentions and reflecting.

• Experience in creating a “thinking environment” for others - active listening and attentive feedback.

• Experience sharing failure in a safe and welcome environment.

• Developing confidence in your capacity, a growth mindset, and a sense that you can act agentically in the world.

• Experience designing a showcase for your project and delivering it to your community.

• Experience co-designing a community initiative and leading a small-scale project for change.

• Experience presenting your work to the wider community and being a champion for change.

• An online community that will be lightly moderated by facilitators but will be mostly for the young people to communicate.

We want young people to feel empowered to make a change in their learning community and recognise the agency they have in the world. We want them to learn that the best way to make a difference is in community with others, whether in person where you live or online.

Our wish is that every young person leaves with a clearer sense of who they are, what they care about and what they want to do next, with the knowledge that they have the skills and capacities to move towards those goals confidently - all while feeling supported by peers and mentors.

As well as building those skills they will also leave with a diligently recorded portfolio of three projects: one individual, one community project and one group project.

• A safe, respectful environment for every young person.

• Facilitators with experience in self-directed education, co-design, project planning methodologies and community-building,

• Honest, open communication with families at every step.

• A consent-based educational experience.

“He is supportive, encouraging and kind. I always felt that he wanted to help me fulfill my potential”

“He makes you feel actually supported and listened to. He has brought joy into my education.”

“He has been supportive of T. since he first met him nearly 4 years ago. His attention to his educational and emotional needs has always been first class and has made himself available whenever he has asked for help or needed a listening ear.”

“He always had his interests at heart through some tricky times. He understood his strengths and helped him focus on these.”

“A wellspring of ingenuity, self-determined thinking, innovative experimentation and wonderful humour, Tim facilitates joyful learning spaces where everyone is encouraged and stretched. Tim has a particularly wonderful knack for supporting excellent critical thinking capacities amongst young people while maintaining light-hearted hilarity as the cohesive community force.”