Red Bridge

About Red Bridge

System Type: Independent School

Grade Levels: Currently K-5, expanding to K-8

Enrollment: Approximately 40 students

Location: San Francisco, CA (Urban)

Overview

Red Bridge’s mission is to develop a sense of agency in every child as the foundation for academic and life success. They do this by organizing students into cohorts called Autonomy Levels instead of traditional age-based grades. Students advocate for their promotion to the next autonomy level based on their work habits, which are defined as habits of being self-driven learners, including executive functioning skills such as time management, organization, and focus. Red Bridge educators, called learning guides, play the role of facilitating a learning journey through small groups and 1:1 support. Their flexibly-designed schedule includes:

Time for students to engage in small group instruction in Math and ELA at their personalized level with a content specialist (an educator specializing in math, reading, or writing instruction)
“Deliberate Practice,” an independent work block during which students practice their work habits by making intentional choices about their learning, working toward Learning Credits they want to earn
3 “Deep Dives” per year, which are extended interdisciplinary project-based learning experiences.
1:1 conference with their learning guide (an educator that focuses on SEL and work habits instruction) each week. This is an opportunity to check-in on a personal level, discuss goals and document progress on their Learning Credits.
Explicit instruction around work habit and character habit curriculum and skills

You can read more about Red Bridge’s model here or listen to their founder speak with Getting Smart here.

Students in Autonomy Level 1 make daily plans for their Deliberate Practice time.

By Autonomy Level 3, students have learned how to plan their Deliberate Practice work for the week ahead and readjust their plans as needed.

Technology Tools Used for Assessment and Reporting

Red Bridge leverages google docs to document the Learning Credits and the assessment tools guides can use to provide opportunities to demonstrate proficiency to learners. They use Google Sheets to document learner’s progress on credits. Students use Google Sites for their portfolios. Progress Reports are created with Google Sheets.

Outcomes: What is assessed?

Learning outcomes at Red Bridge are organized into Learning Credits (similar to badges). Each credit has a student-friendly and fun title such as “Nonfiction Navigator”, a student-friendly question to define the learning outcome such as “Can you use text features in informational texts to efficiently find info?” and a graphic.

There are two different types of Learning Credits:

Fluency Credits require students to demonstrate proficiency on the learning outcomes for discrete skills in a single session (ex: multiplication tables, fixing end punctuation errors, decoding consonant blends, etc.).
Concept Credits, require that the student demonstrate proficiency with a bigger idea and through multiple steps or modalities to demonstrate a deeper understanding of a concept (ex: strategies for addition and subtraction with regrouping, summarizing a text, demonstrating consideration for tone of voice when communicating your wants and needs, etc.)

Character and Work Habit credits are organized by Autonomy Level while the other Credits are organized in stages that grow with learners as they develop.

*denotes a fluency credit, the others listed are concept credits.

Teacher Guides

Each Learning Credit has an accompanying teacher guide that provides an overview and description of the learning outcome as well as the steps and materials to assess proficiency and award the Learning Credit.

Above are two examples of the overview of a Learning Credit from the accompanying teacher guide.

The teacher guides are used by educators to guide the assessment of the Learning Credit. The guide provides clarity on the Learning Credit and what success looks like as well as an assessment opportunity, which may look like a quiz or could be a performance assessment. This allows a variety of educators to support learners in demonstrating the Learning Credit when they are ready.

Levels of Proficiency: How is Progress Marked?

Each Learning Credit is assessed on a binary scale, they are either earned or not yet earned. Success (earning the credit) is defined as well as what “not yet” may look like for each Learning Credit.

Reporting: How is Progress Documented?

Red Bridge documents progress on Learning Credits through physical binders and digital portfolios that live with the learner from year to year. In addition, they provide families with a Progress Report at the end of each semester that provides a summative look at a learner’s progress using benchmark assessments.

Learning Credit Binders and Digital Portfolios

Each learner has a Learning Credit Binder, which physically stores each of their stickers or badges of the Learning Credits they have earned and the date they earned the credit. Evidence from the credit is also uploaded to a Digital Portfolio on Google Sites, where parents can see these samples of student learning and read more detailed reflections from the learner and/or guide.

Above is an example of a learner’s digital portfolio where evidence of their learning tied to credits lives for families, educators and learners to reflect on.

This is a picture of one page of a learner’s credit binder documenting the Communication Learning Credits they have earned and when they earned them.

How Learning Credits Are Earned

Students earn Learning Credits by demonstrating proficiency with a learning guide, content specialist, or admin during small group instruction time, in a 1:1 conference, or during Deliberate Practice time. Guides also track each learner’s progress on Learning Credits in a spreadsheet.

Each Learning Credit has a specific requirement for demonstrating proficiency, which is outlined in the teacher guides. For fluency credits, learners only need to demonstrate proficiency on the learning outcome one time. For concept credits which require 3 pieces of evidence, learners earn the credit when they have demonstrated proficiency on all 3 pieces of evidence, or “steps”.

If a learner does not yet meet the success criteria for the credit, they are asked to practice for at least 1 week before re-attempting a fluency credit and 2-3 weeks before re-attempting a portion of a concept credit.

Progress Report

The second form of reporting at Red Bridge is a more formal and summative report that goes home each semester in the form of a Progress Report. It includes personal narratives and a report of progress on benchmark assessments in computation, reading and writing as well as a progress assessment on character and work habits and attendance data.

This is an image of one page of the Progress Report that is shared with families each semester. It includes a learner’s approximate grade level equivalent score on a benchmark math assessment given three times a year.

Sharing with Families

Families receive two Progress Reports a year, one in February and one in June. They also have access to the Digital Portfolio at all times and are reminded in weekly newsletters to review the portfolio for new evidence of learning and see what new Learning Credits have been awarded.

Crediting, Promotion and Admission to Secondary/Post-Secondary

In addition to earning Learning Credits, learners also advocate for their readiness to promote to the next Autonomy Level. Red Bridge mapped out the work habits at each Autonomy level, and when a learner feels they are ready to demonstrate proficiency of each skill, they work with their guide over a series of weeks to document how they are consistently demonstrating these habits of being a self-driven learner. For example, in Autonomy Level 1, learners must demonstrate that they are able to “Follow a learning plan for the day and monitor progress.” This is broken down into action items that learners track, with their guide, on paper.

After a few weeks of documenting progress, learners in collaboration with their guide will be promoted to the next Autonomy Level if they have successfully demonstrated proficiency with the majority of the habits of their Autonomy Level. This generally happens each Winter and Spring of the school year. Many learners at Red Bridge are ready for promotion after a full 2 years at an Autonomy Level, but some are ready earlier while others need more time. It is important to note that Autonomy Level groupings are decoupled from academic groups. Learners have agency over their Autonomy Level groups as mentioned above, but educators place learners in the reading, writing, and math content groups based on assessment data, so that each learner is in the right group for each aspect of their learning - work habits, and content proficiency. This flexible structure supports learners in being in the best grouping for them based on their work habit skills. Thanks to their flexible schedule, learners are still able to access the academic skills and content they need regardless of their Autonomy Level grouping.

At Red Bridge, there is no translation to traditional grades, and learners do not receive a traditional transcript. Currently, Red Bridge is expanding into middle school and will be exploring ways to continue their competency-based reporting model while supporting learners to matriculate in local high schools.