The Hive is our answer the question "what if you could design your dream school?" Now families no longer have to choose an education for their children with their head or their heart. The HIve is a K-12, bi-lingual alternative to school that allows you to meet the needs of both by blending proven educational approaches that help children become effective, wholehearted, purposeful learners with trauma-informed practice.
"People will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget the way you made them feel." Dr Maya Angelou
The Hive's mission is to make everyone feel safe, welcome and purposeful. Drop in for one session, stay for a lifetime. Everyone is welcome in our worldschool.
Every learning experience at The Hive has a purposeful, real-world context, providing opportunities to connect with other learners in a meaningful and engaging way. Children are not only encouraged to value and care for themselves, their peers and the planet, they are also explicitly taught how to turn their ideas into concrete plans and execute them with confidence. This approach goes way beyond what is needed for passing standardised tests.
The value offered by Hive School is much more than a year-end grade.
Each 6 week session is built around one of the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, commonly known as SDGs. Knowledge and skills are acquired and applied for a real world purpose, as children choose the impact they want to have and are supported in working together strategically to achieve their goals. We balance the WHAT and the HOW through a mixture of project-based learning, group work and individual learning plans.
Using a range of learning skills helps them to become well-rounded, multi-skilled & knowledgeable worldschoolers.
The Hive's mission is to bring an enhanced level of safety, belonging and purpose to our corner of the world by providing a dynamic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural worldschooling environment, where everyone has the opportunity to find their feet, find their voice and use both all day long. Our education method is inspired by traditional and progressive philosophies, blending the best research-informed teaching methods to support children in flourishing academically and personally.
Aided by small class sizes, our global network of teachers, mentors and coaches can really get to know your children and give them the attention they deserve.
The HIve is designed in a more natural and flexible way than traditional, linear models of education. Our curriculum forms like a patchwork or a honeycomb as opposed to a ladder. Each individual that enters the hive is encouraged to share what they know with others, and to build understanding collaboratively. We support students to acquire knowledge, skills and experiences by cross-pollinating their ideas with others. Children transfer their knowledge and integrate their learning skills, developing an efficient, life-long learning habit.
Whether they stay with us full time or continue their worldschooling journey elsewhere, children will leave Hive.School better equipped to manage their personal learning path.
The Hive is spread across 2 buildings on one site: the main Hive building houses learners aged 7 to 16, and next door we have a dedicated Kindergarten space for children aged 3 to 6
Human Hive Learning follows a cycle of inquiry. We begin our day by checking in to how we're feeling (in Spanish and English), then prepare ourselves for successful self-directed learning tasks. After a fruit snack, we break into groups and dive into active learning tasks.
We come back together at lunchtime for a home-cooked meal, then finish our learning tasks, reflect together on our achievements and challenges, and make plans for a positive learning experience tomorrow.
Successful learning happens all day, every day, and the children at The Hivel are supported to choose the tasks best-suited to achieving their individual, group, and global learning goals through the Core Learning Skills of literacy, numeracy, oracy, and self-directed learning.
Our framework supports the development of the core, learning skills of literacy, numeracy, oracy & self-regulated learning.
The Learning Skills Curriculum (developed by our Principal, Kate McAllister & Dr James Mannion) is an alternative approach to traditional, subject-based learning which has been shown to close the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children & raise attainment for everyone. But more importantly that that, this human-centred approach to education equips children with the tools they need to form effective learning habits and the autonomy they need to apply them wisely to future learning challenges.
Our curriculum helps children acquire relevant, inter-disciplinary knowledge and The Human Hive provides a global network of teachers, coaches & mentors to build learning relationships with.
Hive School supports you in raising confident, competent, happy & healthy learners.
As a teacher and a therapist we are keenly aware of the power self-knowledge has to transform lives.
We have spent the past 20 years developing a model for education inspired by neurobiology to support effective learning. Because how we feel affects how we behave, how we behave affects how we learn, how we learn affects how we feel......and on it goes. When we know how we can turn a negative feedback loop into a cycle of empowerment.
We have opened up opportunities for learning all over the world, in all kinds of places including traditional schools, corporate offices & refugee camps. We even made a school in a double decker bus!
This is our life's work and we couldn't be more thrilled to have a permanent location from which to host our school, train new teachers and share the joy of teaching and learning in this human-centred way.
"Education doesn't change the world. Education changes people. It is people who change the world." Paolo Freire
We opened Hive School because we wanted to be part of something that was bigger than any one of us. Our philosophy is With, Not For, and we believe that the answers we seek exist in the people around us if we know how to ask the right questions. So we are inviting like-minded families to join us so that we can ask big questions, find great answers build something wonderful together.
We want dreamers and change-makers to join us in making this community into something we will talk about and benefit from for the rest of our lives.
If that sounds like it could be you get in touch, sign up, join us for a session and if you love it as much as we do, stay for longer and become a founding member of The Human
Hive's first Hive School.
August 21st to 28th 2021, Cabrera, Dominican Republic
10 days of building skills, knowledge & relationships.
Become a more wholehearted, purposeful educator.