Brightworks ABC’s
If you are new to the brightworks community, welcome! As you get to know us, you will notice that some of the terms we use are different than what you’ll see at other schools.
Brightworks is a school that reimagines the idea of school. Founded in September 2011, we offer a one-of-a-kind K-12 curriculum where:
students explore an idea from multiple perspectives with the help of real-world experts, tools, and experiences,
collaborate on projects driven by their curiosity,
and share their findings with the world.
Brightworks does away with tests, grades and homework, instead supporting each student as they create a rich and detailed portfolio of their work.
We believe that a school should serve as a learning commons and a community workshop, and the language we use to describe this unique learning environment reflects those values.
A: The Brightworks Arc
B: Brightworks Bands
Brightworks Bands are the main working groups of Brightworks students. These are our classes. Each band is made up of 10-13 students with at most a 3-year age span between them, assisted by a staff collaborator. Students have frequent interaction with other bands but their home band and collaborator are their anchors within the school community.
Band members work closely together to expand their understanding of a topic and build the skills they will need for their projects. Social-emotional learning is also at its strongest within these small communities within-a-community. Each band maintains a home bandspace within Brightworks that they build together and fill with evidence of their explorations, ideas, and projects.
C: Collaborators
“Brightworks culminates the hard working mentality of all other high schools but adds the freedom to follow what interests you. You can truly express yourself with your projects, clothing, and ideas. This along with the most supporting teachers you will ever meet ties up everything in a beautiful DIY bow.”
Collaborator is the word we use for our educators at Brightworks – this embodies the enthusiasm and curiosity our teachers have as they go hand in hand with the children into adventures of learning and self-discovery. They listen intently to the way children perceive and process. They possess both expertise and an explorer’s passion to help children contextualize and expand on what they already understand. At the same time collaborators are able to help students forge ahead, to provoke, and explore a variety of new ideas and pursuits.
Our collaborators share in the extensive community of students, parents, colleagues, administrators and experts, refining ideas, passions and interests while connecting them with curricular goals in responsive and creative ways. They believe in involving children in the direction of all projects and pursuits to reach our goal of a truly immersive and personalized education for each child.
Collaborators strike a careful balance between cultivating freedom and agency in students to pursue their own passions, and well-crafted lessons to spark and ignite new approaches, skills and perceptions. At our school, collaborators are first and foremost advocates for children and strive to build bonds with them, challenge them, support them, and create with them so each and every Brightworks student can find their most beautiful versions of themselves.
Putting it all together
Challenging, Individualized Academics:
“Thank you for creating this place that so clearly honors children & their experience of the world.”
Within the rich tapestry of the arc topics, collaborators weave reading, writing, art, science, technology, and math. Collaborators work with each student where they are, in each subject and in each activity, providing an individualized pattern of provocation, scaffolding, encouragement and challenge.
Cross-age connections:
At the heart of the Brightworks experience is the opportunity to bond with, teach, and learn from children of various ages and abilities. The low student-teacher ratio of 6:1 allows parallel learning across age groups, even within the same physical space. Strong friendships and collaborations exist at the school through structured moments like reading buddies, morning and afternoon circle, daily park visits, Community Friday, and literature circles, and friendships develop because of our small community and intimate learning environment.
