Wondertree has been registering home learning children since 1989. We work with families all over the province who are making the choice to homeschool. Over the years we have offered services and support to the homelearning community and lobbied on behalf of choice in education. Some families simply use us to legally register; others are more active in using our services.

We hold the belief that children learn naturally in the context of conversations with their families and with their significant mentors. We welcome the opportunity to network and engage in an open and creative approach to the whole idea of an emerging curriculum, what it means and how it expresses itself.

Your coordinator of the HomeLearner's Network is Suzanne Gregory, who has been running the Wondertree Network for the past 6 years.

* Wondertree Learning Centre and SelfDesign Learning Community are both recognized Group 1 Independent schools that stretch the paradigm of schooling beyond walls and books and imposed curriculum. When you are registering as a home learner you used to be registering with the Wondertree School, now you are registering with SelfDesign. Both programs are under the umbrella of the Wondertree Foundation for Natural Learning and are run as funded projects or "beyond schools."

* As a School Authority, we can register homelearning students to meet their legal obligation with the Ministry of Education.  There is no limit to the number of learners whom we can register, and we can register learners at any time during the year; however, we only receive funding ($175 per learner per year from the Ministry of Education) for those registered by September 30.  Late registrants may be asked to pay a small registration fee.

* Wondertree grew out of a homelearning environment and has kept its "family rather than factory" focus over the years. Our activities arise out of an appreciation of learning as part of life and an understanding of self, family and community as a connection of people co-creating their lives together.

Some things we believe/assume:

* that existence and life is sacred and worth paying attention to; that it's worth questioning and experimenting and risking.

* the factory metaphor for education is merely an efficiency for public and private education.

* optimizing learning according to each child's sensibility is the point of education.

* we are all learning and teaching all the time and that the great question is "what is being taught, what is being learned?"

* learning flourishes in an atmosphere of choice, trust and respect.

* as mentors and guides, our job is to maintain our sense of curiosity and understanding of the heart of each child.

* our job is to help them find their own answers, learn how to learn, and to know themselves. And that we can only effectively do that as we do it for ourselves.

In 1983 a father, Brent Cameron, began an experiment with his daughter and a few neighborhood children to see what would happen if children were consulted and trusted in designing their own curriculum from their own curiosity. The image at left is from that first year, which was the beginning of the ongoing Wondertree Foundation and the Wondertree Learning Centre.

        Services:

For our registered homelearners, we provide the following services:

* When requested, consultation and support for your choice to home educate (and referrals to local homelearning support groups).

* A newsletter, generally sent in October, February, and June.

* Optional access to the SelfDesign online Village.  In most cases, when a learner has an account, we also require that a parent have an account.  We deduct $25 per account from the Resource  Allowance.

* $125 Resource Allowance per learner (including 5-year-olds) per year.  This is a reimbursement for educational expenses that is provided in lieu of lending materials to families, as it would be difficult for us to acquire everything that our families would like to have, and it would also be expensive to ship materials since we have families all over BC.

* Student ID cards.

* For Greater Vancouver learners age 14 and up, a GoCard form, to access the concession fare on Translink.

* Information on admission to post-secondary education, if requested.  We continue to compile information that has been provided to us by homelearners who have successfully gone on to college and university.