Neurodiversity Resources
At Brightworks, we go beyond recognizing and fostering students' unique abilities – we celebrate them.
Our commitment to embracing neurodiversity stems from the recognition that diverse learning styles can profoundly enrich our learning environment, reveal innovative solutions to complex challenges, and offer unique perspectives that empower every student.
We know that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to education, and we're dedicated to creating an inclusive space where students can thrive, regardless of their unique learning profile.
We invite push-ins, we believe most accommodations that will help one child will help others too, and we are in the practice of integrating supports like sensory tools, time management strategies, body breaks, and fidgets for all.
A question we often receive during admissions is, “Are you a school for neurodivergent learners?”
The answer we offer is this: We are not a school specifically for students with learning differences or behavioral challenges that need more guardrails than we are able to provide. Yet, generally speaking, Brightworks offers multiple learning strategies to accommodate the neurodiversity of our student body.
We do have quite a few neurodivergent learners in our community. Through a parent support group and a student affinity group, we aim to link folks with one another to build connection and share resources.
Our low student/teacher ratio, focus on the individual child, and flexible collaborators means that kids thrive here that might struggle in other environments, and that all kids can be academically challenged while in class with socially appropriate peers. Parents have reported that without the requirement of rote memorization, worksheets, and hours of homework in the evening, their children experienced less anxiety, stress and were excited to go to school.
Resources
Child Development
California Pacific Medical Center Kalmanovitz Child Development Center
Support for families with disabilities
Learning Differences
ADD/ADHD
Dyslexia
Affirming Neurodiversity at Brightworks
“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower. ”
— Alexander Den Heijer
Brightworks is committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and adaptable learning environment that is neurodiversity affirming.
This is the idea that individuals fundamentally have differences in their abilities and how they interact with the world around them – differences which are not considered to be deficits that need to be “fixed”. Instead, we know that neurodiversity is natural and therefore operate from the assumption that there are individual differences in how each of us think, learn, process, and perceive information. It’s a wonderful thing!
We know that every student has endless potential: and by leveraging student voice and multiple ways of knowing and learning, our general approach supports students' varied learning styles, allowing them to excel in ways that align with their individual strengths.
Our primary goal at Brightworks is to ensure that students feel seen, heard, and loved—and that every student experiences learner agency. By learning how they learn, how they best take in information, process it, and express it, students are able to acquire the tools to support their learning, advocate for themselves and seek out opportunities that match their brain’s way of learning.
Collaboration with our skilled learning specialist aims to support educators, parents and students, alike, in an effort to offer a wide range of resources and tools to support all learners, while actively promoting learner agency.
By recognizing the diversity in learning profiles in group conversations, in books, and in the experts we collaborate with, we work to normalize individual differences, talk about specific needs and share out tools for learning that may be directed to one student but helps many.
This is further supported through our program’s structure and low student-to-teacher ratio, ensuring that individualized attention is given to every student. We provide flexible collaboration opportunities that allow children to thrive, even those who might face challenges in traditional learning settings. This approach encourages all students to be academically challenged within a supportive and socially appropriate peer context.
Affirming the importance of inclusive education, Brightworks hosts student affinity groups specifically designed to empower neurodivergent learners. Additionally, we have a dedicated parent support group to reinforce a supportive and understanding community.
While we are not a school exclusively designed for students with severe learning differences or behavioral challenges requiring extensive support, our focus on individualized learning, combined with a commitment to inclusive education, enables children to thrive academically and socially.