Dear readers,

What if relationships were not something we build alongside academic rigour,
but something we built before it?

This question has shaped how the school day begins here at Hábitat Learning
Community. Each morning opens not with instruction, but with an intimate class
assembly - just the 20–30 students of that group, gathering together before anything else happens. This is not about scale or spectacle; it is about proximity and
presence.

Within that space, assembly becomes a place to notice how we are feeling, to reflect on something we’ve experienced recently, or to sit with a question. Sometimes that question is philosophical, subtly connected to the learning that will follow. Sometimes it is completely open. What matters is that nothing is being tested or measured.

Before objectives are named or instruction begins, we gather to arrive together - to
locate ourselves within the group and establish the conditions for the day ahead. The teacher listens more than they direct. There are no right answers being sought, no progress being tracked. This is the relational groundwork that learning depends on.

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When learning is rooted in Community, Belonging, and Relationships - the three
pillars of Human Scale Education - academic work gains depth and durability. That
same commitment shapes how we respond when learning is disrupted. If difficulties
are noticed throughout the day by the carefully observant ‘Head Teacher’ of that year group, we temporarily set academic work aside, gather in assembly, name the issue together, and resolve it collectively. In doing so, we recognise that the emotional and relational work undertaken there is not a break from learning but learning of equal - if not greater - value.

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When learning is rooted in Community, Belonging, and Relationships - the threepillars of Human Scale Education - academic work gains depth and durability.

Before the year found its rhythm, priority was given not to academic profiling, but to
learning students’ stories, interests, and identities. Who they are outside the
classroom. What excites them. What unsettles them. What they carry in with them
each morning. Before data, there was dialogue.

Perhaps this is because we often treat relationships and rigour as a binary.
Borrowing Gianni Rodari’s concept of the binomio fantastico, I am beginning to see
them instead as a creative pairing - two elements that gain meaning through their
interaction, rather than through separation or hierarchy.1

In more traditional systems, rigour is often grounded in strong routines, clear
expectations, and visible evidence of learning. I value this deeply - it is how I was
trained, and it remains central to my practice. What I am noticing, however, is how
these structures are strengthened when something more human is deliberately
placed before them. Here, rigour takes on a different texture.

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Learning, in this context, also looks like reflection after missteps: naming harm,
repairing relationships, apologising and trying again. It includes knowing how to re-
enter the community after getting it wrong. These moments are not rushed past in
pursuit of curriculum coverage. They are treated as curriculum.

In the first weeks of teaching fifth grade - the UK equivalent of Year 6 - we didn’t
begin with a formal curriculum at all. There were no units launched, no assessment
baselines gathered. Instead, we played games. We talked. We learned names
properly. We built shared references, inside jokes, routines, trust. A full month of this
felt, to my British-trained instincts, like a stretch. And yet, it taught me something I
hadn’t fully interrogated before.

It’s no secret that in many schools, trips, enrichment days, and moments of joy are
saved for the end of the year - as if curiosity, community, and delight must be earned through sustained compliance. Work first. Reward later.

I understand the logic. Behaviour depends on structure, and in the everyday rhythm
of school life, delaying reward often makes sense. And yet, I’ve begun to wonder
whether, for the bigger things - community, belonging, motivation - a different
ordering might serve us better. Why is joy something we ration, rather than
something we build with?

This is not an argument for the absence of structure, nor a romantic rejection of
standards. Somewhere between rigidity and looseness sits a middle ground - one
where boundaries exist, expectations are clear, and relationships give those
expectations weight.

In this model, learning is not propped up by fear of failure or performance for
approval. It is sustained by trust - the quiet confidence that the adults in the room are invested not just in outcomes, but in the people producing them. A reminder that how learning feels often shapes how deeply it lasts.

Until next time,
Charlotte

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1 Rodari, G. (1973). The Grammar of Fantasy: An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories. London:Verso.