Classmate Team

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a week since our team participated in the inaugural conference, held on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Stó:lō Coast Salish peoples.

The conference started with an amazing opening by .mh and the , whose music and storytelling reminded us of the power of culture, identity, and community to connect people through learning.

Thank you to , reminding us that meaningful learning is rooted in craftsmanship, character, and creating beautiful work that matters.

Throughout the conference, we had the opportunity to facilitate our own sessions while also learning from incredible workshops and Deep Dives that challenged our thinking and will continue to shape our work alongside schools in the coming year.

We were fortunate to hear powerful reflections from youth leaders and Finny Bicycle who shared their take on student agency.

Thank you to for hosting, and to everyone who organized, presented, participated, and shared their thinking. We left with new ideas, new questions, and a renewed excitement for the year ahead.

To the students, families, teachers, and support staff navigating this tragic event, we send our sincere condolences.

Your community has faced an unimaginable loss, and we feel the weight of it deeply.

Schools hold so much care, and we hope
everyone impacted finds the support they need.

To those helping young people through this right now, please take care of yourselves and each other.

We wish you hope and healing
in the days and months ahead.

Speaking up sounds simple. But it isn’t always.

This week, the Classmate team worked with Magda and Jackie from Aitken Leadership Group to focus on group dynamics, communication, and the unseen forces that shape how teams function.

Status. Certainty. Autonomy. Relatedness. Fairness.

When we can name these, we can respond with intention, not instinct.

This kind of work matters to us because we operate in deeply relational spaces: schools, leadership teams, classrooms, communities. We ask educators to reflect, adapt, and collaborate—and that means holding ourselves to the same standard.

Doing the internal work is part of the work.

This work is grounded in the SCARF model—a simple, research-informed way to understand the social triggers that shape how teams show up and respond together.