Teaching life skills is one of the most important aspects of our school. Resilience, doing hard things, having a growth mindset, these are just some of the life skills we teach every afternoon at our schools. Coach Mike at Nitro swimming shows me and these kids how to handle falling in water with your clothes on. These are the types of “tests” we have in our life skills events. Of course we prepare our students and train for it, but we also have real world situations like this that give our students a taste of what real world “tests” are. All of this is possible because we have every afternoon available because our students excel at academics in only 2 hours in the morning.
Traditional school is broken. It teaches the wrong things. We teach core academics in 2 hours a day (quite excellently I might add). This frees up every afternoon for life skills- not just financial literacy, but public speaking, empathy, a growth mindset through failure, and much more.
Our students actually have less screen time than traditional schools! Here’s how: Most traditional schools give their kids Chromebooks and have the students look at notes or worksheets on them while the teacher gives out information. And since most schools are 6 hours of periods of subjects, this means 6 hours of screen time. At our school, we have two hours of screen time, which is all on AI apps and all we need to excel at academics. The rest of the day is spent learning life skills, like teamwork, grit, and public speaking. 🙌🏼
The schedule-
Morning Launch-15 min of motivation, brain-teasers, setting goals, light exercise, and puzzles to get us going for the day.
Core skills Block- this is where we learn our math, science, reading, language arts, etc. It’s a 2 hour block on AI apps that are personalized to every student. The Adult Guides don’t teach academics, but are there for motivation, emotional support, and accountability. We use the pomodoro method, so we take a few short breaks to stay focused. Two short outside recess breaks happen in this time.
Lunch-also outside, and we get 45 minutes for lunch. This is like our 3rd recess.
Life Skills Workshops- these workshops teach financial literacy, grit, teamwork, giving and receiving feedback, and much more through real world situations. Our workshops are super fun and yet very challenging. These workshops are led and directed by our Adult Guides and they make our school unique. These workshops are highly creative and ambitious.
Cleanup time and a group meeting where we shout-out and encourage each other before going home.
Also we have a no homework policy. 😀
What’s missing from most traditional schools? Life skills. At this new school model our academic rigor is exemplary, but it’s the life skills piece that parents are drawn to. Financial literacy, public speaking, giving and receiving feedback, empathy, doing hard things, etc. Every six weeks is a different life skill, and our “tests” aren’t written tests, it’s how well did you portfolio do? Or “did you finish the 5k in a better time than at the beginning of the session?” It’s measurable tangible tests on life skills. PS- this is all possible through our 2hourlearning program where students excel in academics in only 2 hours a day on AI apps-that’s all you need. Which frees up every afternoon for life skills workshops led by our adult human Guides.
Our promise is that every kid should love school. And the way we make that happen is through our amazing adult Guides. Their job is to know and understand every single student- and since they aren’t teaching academics (AI does that) they aren’t bogged down with lesson plans, grading papers, and lecturing at the front of the class. They are there for support, guidance, encouragement and accountability. And also- every afternoon the Guides lead “life skills” workshops, focused on public speaking, financial literacy, grit, giving and receiving feedback, etc.
Every kid deserves a school like this.
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📌Nobody is chained to a desk.
Kids are free to work anywhere they want - in bean bags, standing up, laying down, in one of our conference rooms, etc. This works because they are equipped and entrusted with decision making skills regarding how they work best.
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📌 Academic work is done in 2 hours or less. Our students learn twice as fast as their peers and rank in the top 1% nationwide. Our A.I. tutor gives students 1:1 personalized education that provides coursework at the appropriate level + pace for them.
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📌 Daily Shoutouts: The last activity of every day is sitting together as a group and giving each other positive encouragements from that day. This builds students up, encourages them to notice and acknowledge the good in others, and motivates positive behavior.
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📌 Purposeful Interior Design. The layout of a school is more important than a fancy building or expensive equipment. Our spaces were intentionally designed to create an environment that promotes optimized learning. This can be replicated anywhere with any budget.
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📌Afternoons are devoted to Life Skills Curriculum. Academics usually get all the attention, but life skills are crucial! We build our curriculum so that the entire afternoon is devoted to developing life skills, and empower students to be involved in charting and tracking their progress.
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📌 Multiple recesses per day: Students take frequent breaks throughout the day
to play, move their bodies, and use up the enormous amount of energy that so many kids are tragically forced to waste sitting in desks for 8 hours per day.
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📌 Exciting workshops every day, Like cooking, coding a self-driving car, pitching a business idea to investors, ice bath challenges, learning to swim, solving a Rubik’s cube, public speaking, chemistry experiments like fire-blowing, fashion design, running a race, and so much more.
Life skills!! Even for young elementary school kids! How many teenagers are unable to talk on the phone? Can’t even call the dentist or the restaurant to order tacos? Rather than write a report on these life skills we give real-world practical tests! And the stakes are important to the kids because they actually want to succeed at setting up the play dates. We believe in academic rigor 💯 but with our 2 hour learning program on AI apps, we have all afternoon available for project based learning, like these life skills shown here. Other life skills we teach - as part of the school day- are financial literacy, empathy, giving and receiving feedback, and many more. This is the future of education!
Real life skills are so crucial to teach to kids, as young as possible! One of our most beloved workshops is a REAL air b n b that the kids work together to manage. Other workshops that similarly teach non-academic life skills involve things like swimming, cooking, running a tough mudder race, learning how to invest in stocks and bonds, public speaking, ice bath challenges, cold calling, audience building on social media, crafting, building cars, coding, completing strength tests at the firehouse with firemen, and so so so much more. 🙌🏼
Our AI tutor gives students 1:1 personalized education, providing coursework at their individual pace and the appropriate level. Students progress with concept-based mastery and without any knowledge gaps.
We motivate kids by giving them the gift of time to pursue the things they want to do and develop life skills. Adults in the room support motivated students to foster a growth mindset and independent learning.
Students learn 2x faster than their peers at traditional schools.
The top 20% of students show 6.5x growth.
Our classes score in the top top 1-2% nationally across the board.
Our 2hr Learning model harnesses adaptive technology to provide students 1:1 learning, accelerating mastery over core subjects.
With academics completed in the mornings, they get their afternoons back to gain real-world skills and explore interests, all at school.
The truth is clear: Your kids can accomplish twice as much if they’re not sitting in a one-size-fits-all classroom the whole day. / While old-school kids zone out for 6 hours, Alpha kids learn faster and love it.
Our 2hr Learning model harnesses adaptive technology to provide students 1:1 learning, accelerating mastery over core subjects.
With academics completed in the mornings, they get their afternoons back to gain real-world skills and explore interests, all at school.
The truth is clear: Your kids can accomplish twice as much if they’re not sitting in a one-size-fits-all classroom the whole day. / While old-school kids zone out for 6 hours, Alpha kids learn faster and love it.
Our 2hr Learning model harnesses adaptive technology to provide students 1:1 learning, accelerating mastery over core subjects.
With academics completed in the mornings, they get their afternoons back to gain real-world skills and explore interests, all at school.
The truth is clear: Your kids can accomplish twice as much if they’re not sitting in a one-size-fits-all classroom the whole day. / While old-school kids zone out for 6 hours, Alpha kids learn faster and love it.
Our 2hr Learning model harnesses adaptive technology to provide students 1:1 learning, accelerating mastery over core subjects.
With academics completed in the mornings, they get their afternoons back to gain real-world skills and explore interests, all at school.
The truth is clear: Your kids can accomplish twice as much if they’re not sitting in a one-size-fits-all classroom the whole day. / While old-school kids zone out for 6 hours, Alpha kids learn faster and love it.
Our 2hr Learning model harnesses adaptive technology to provide students 1:1 learning, accelerating mastery over core subjects.
With academics completed in the mornings, they get their afternoons back to gain real-world skills and explore interests, all at school.
The truth is clear: Your kids can accomplish twice as much if they’re not sitting in a one-size-fits-all classroom the whole day. / While old-school kids zone out for 6 hours, Alpha kids learn faster and love it.
Our 2hr Learning model harnesses adaptive technology to provide students 1:1 learning, accelerating mastery over core subjects.
With academics completed in the mornings, they get their afternoons back to gain real-world skills and explore interests, all at school.
The truth is clear: Your kids can accomplish twice as much if they’re not sitting in a one-size-fits-all classroom the whole day. / While old-school kids zone out for 6 hours, Alpha kids learn faster and love it.
