“Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
― Dr Martin Luther King
We encourage students to sit at least 2 -4 GCSEs as well as the A Levels needed for particular University or Job entry.
Our BE Hub encourages our home ed students to sit a range of external tests and exams through various online platforms.
We are working with NEC (National Extension College) to provide access to GCSEs and A Level exams for students, if and when they feel ready.
We provide regular challenging assignments for our students to help them track their development and progression in various skills.
Our end of project knowledge tests are for the students benefit. We believe that students should be allowed to try and fail in tests to learn about their mistakes and gaps in knowledge - Assessment FOR learning rather than assessment OF learning.
Students will not be provided with grades or scores unless they are sitting a particular test with that kind of rubric.
We believe that grades, like exams, have their place but need not define an education. There are many valuable skills that are more effectively shown by other methods of evaluation.
Da Vinci Life Skills Assessments (that lead to DVQs) are made regularly as learners progress. We have a more comprehensive review at the end of each semester which assesses students on 70 different life skills in 7 core skill sets.
Students assess their own work with support from their peers and mentors. They evidence their work in comprehensive digital and physical portfolios. These portfolios contain written work, images, photographs, films, audio recordings and dated student, peer and mentor comments.
DVQs (Da Vinci Qualifications) are a set of 5 qualifications that can be internally awarded at the end of each year.
DVQ Certificates are awarded when students successfully complete a project in each or any of our 5 project pathways - FOOD, ENTERPRISE, PRODUCTION, MULTIVERSE GAMES & PEPs (PERSONAL EXPLORATION PROJECTS). Students must complete at least 54 hours of learning per project.
The digital and/or physical portfolios from these projects are used as evidence to award our DVQs, along with a daily review log and a piece of academic writing.
Students and Mentors also complete our life skills evaluation charts which show development in around 70 different life skills in 7 core skill sets. All this information becomes part of a students DVQ Report.
To gain external accreditation DVQs can be submitted to an exam board for a FPQ, HPQ or EPQ.
We are in pre-launch/development stage with our DVLS Curriculum which has been trialing in selected schools/hubs since 2022.
We are keen to make our Curriculum available to all that are interested.
Schools can contact us to become an pre-launch trial school/hub that supports us in the development of the Curriculum.
We also offer a 10 day pilot. This is delivered by two BE Mentors over the course of two weeks to one class of students. It incorporates all five of our pathways and BE Time, as a sample of our Curriculum and Training.
We have a BE (Biophilic Education) Hub (small school) that opened in Sept. 2023 for 11 - 16 year olds, in Arrington, near Cambridge UK. We are currently open three days a week, offering the full range of DVLS projects, delivered by our Founder, Rosina Dorelli,
The BE Hub Arrington is the official centre for trialing and developing all the new DVLS projects. We have links with research at various Universities to promote project & skills based learning.
We are planning to expand to a larger Hub that offers five days a week in a bespoke biophilic environment.
Let us know if you would like to come for a visit or trial day. Please contact us to be added to our mailing list or for more details.
Yes, we have a few programs check out this page in Our Services:
BE Mentor Development
We are offering in person and online programs that support and train teachers to facilitate Biophilic Education and our DVLS Curriculum in schools and hubs.
We have started piloting our DVLS Curriculum in selected schools, globally. Once we have sufficient feedback and research data we will be opening our DVLS Curriculum subscription to all interested schools and home ed hubs.
Click here for a list of our current partner pilot schools/hubs.
If your school is interested in running one of our pilots, please do get in touch.
We will be offering a range of extra curricular clubs and holiday workshops at our BE Hub near Cambridge, however our program has not started yet.
Clubs will include projects such as film, animation, creative expression, coding, tabletop role-playing games, enterprise, growing and cooking food, etc.
If you are interested in being kept up to date with our extra curricular clubs, please contact us so we can add you to our mailing list.