Linnaea School

School Profile

Linnaea School closed school year 2010-2011.

Linnaea School is an independent school, situated on Linnaea Farm, Cortes Island, British Columbia, serving Kindergarten to grade 8. The school meets curriculum requirements of the British Columbia Ministry of Education, from whom the school receives approximately half of its operational funding. The school regularly receives outstanding evaluations from the Ministry of Education.

Linnaea School offers a holistic approach to education which nurtures the inner spirit and strives to meet the needs of the whole child. The School aspires to protect childhood's joys, while preparing students for the world they will enter into on graduation. The curriculum emphasizes knowledge of world culture, a strong relationship to nature, skills to build community and resolve conflict and self expression through the arts.

A strong relationship to the natural world provides spiritual resilience through connection to a life long source of inspiration and comfort. Connecting with nature motivates children to care for the earth and to relate larger environmental problems to their own actions. Linnaea School is part of a 315 acre land trust owned and operated by Linnaea Farm Society and resident stewards. The forests, lake, streams, fields and organic food production areas provide students with a rich setting for study and inspiration. Students do much of their learning outside. Their art classes and field trips take them out into the natural world. The school is part of the national Green School Programme and all students work actively on related environmental projects and activities. They participate in on-going discussion of current environmental issues at age appropriate levels and in hands on projects such as stream restoration, heritage seed saving and salmon enhancement projects. Each class chooses a habitat on the farm to study and care for each year. This stewardship introduces the children to field study techniques, the food chain, indigenous plant life, animal conservation, water care, life cycles, and countless other discoveries and scientific skills. Observations, field notes, art and poetry are recorded in students' beautifully bound Nature Journals.

In Farm Life classes, a Linnaea Farm steward takes students out on the farm to meet milk cows, laying hens, pigs and sheep. Students build compost piles, visit the vegetable production garden and tend the school garden. They harvest and prepare apples, herbs, and mushrooms. Sometimes, they help with ongoing farm projects, like sowing pasture seed. They get to know farmers who are passionate about local, whole food and are energized by a life that keeps them in close connection to the earth.

One of Linnaea School's greatest assets is its location on a working organic farm. As global forces heighten interest in food security, it's wise to understand how food is grown and preserved. Students at Linnaea School become acquainted with small scale fruit, vegetable, dairy and meat production methods.

In Farm Life classes, a Linnaea Farm steward takes students out on the farm to milk cows, laying hens, pigs and sheep. Students build compost piles, visit the vegetable production garden and tend the school garden. They harvest and prepare apples, herbs, and mushrooms. Sometimes, they help with ongoing farm projects, like sowing pasture seed. They get to know farmers who are passionate about local, whole food and are energized by a life that keeps them in close connection to the earth.

Linnaea students belong to a strong, close knit community of staff and students. Every morning begins with students, staff and visiting parents sitting together in a circle on the floor for games, role plays, singing or reading buddies. In Morning Circle, students receive recognition for their good deeds in the form of virtue certificates. Everyone gets specially recognized in Circle by a picture and poem composed for them by the school community at some point during the year.

In addition to multi-age classrooms, relationships between age groups are strengthened in many ways. In weekly clubs, students from different classes come together with parents and staff to learn skills such as carpentry, knitting and kayaking. Once a week, older and younger students team up to read together. At the winter holiday, students exchange home made gifts through a name draw.

Parents are included in the community through required parent time in which they help in the classroom or with special events. This partnership between the school and parents helps to bridge the gap between home and school life for children and gives our students the reassurance that the adults in their life are working together to support and nurture them and their school community. All members of the school community come together for seasonal celebrations: the Festival of Lights, May Day and the End of Year Celebration.

There is no separate staff room for adults, we share work and play spaces alike. The staff and students are on first name terms - respect is expected and mutually modeled.

The Linnaea curriculum includes conflict resolution. The staff encourages students to articulate problems without blaming or attacking, to practice reflective listening skills, to accept responsibility for their part of the problem, and to work through to a common solution. In addition, the curriculum includes tools for self evaluation of one's personal needs and for learning to see others' behaviour in terms of their needs.

For more information please visit our website or call our office and arrange a visit.