The week D2 goes out into the school. This morning we name what a role model actually does - and what fixing looks like instead. Then the teams get revealed, and they're the same teams twice over: your Spark team is your boat team. Same four or five people, all week, in both directions.
By 3:15 today, every team has one signed design that everyone on the team can explain - and Team 1 has been upstairs and written about it honestly.
Not four or five sketches stapled together. One drawing, agreed, with everyone's name on it.
Cutting before agreeing is the fastest route to Wednesday's argument. Design day is design day.
Their reflection says what they found hard, not what Spark did. Push question two.
Standard rhythm. Thinking Puzzle up by the cubbies.
Standard rhythm.
Talking points, not a script. Hit these in your own words - the studio can tell the difference, and the ones that land are the ones you actually mean.
The Tally Keeper posts Friday's numbers before 8:30 and reads the studio averages aloud - Intentionality, Civility, Excellence, Energy. That's the job the role exists for, and without this it never gets done.
One question from the guide: "Which of those four is this week's job?" Take the answer, write it on the board, leave it there all week.
Don't discuss it. Two minutes, then move into the launch. If a number needs a real conversation, that conversation is Wednesday's at Town Hall - and naming it now is what gets it onto that agenda.
The opener (2 min):
"For two weeks this studio has been working on itself. This week we go out into the school. And there's a thing I need to be honest about first: most of you have been walked past by these kids all year - or all of last year. They've already decided some things about you. And some of you they've never seen before, which is its own kind of interesting: you get to decide from scratch what they think a D2 learner is."
What a role model actually is (8 min):
Ask first, don't tell: "Who's someone you look up to? What do they actually do?" Take four or five answers and listen for the pattern - it's almost never "they told me what to do."
Then name the three moves and put them on the board. These stay up all week:
Then the contrast, and be blunt about it: "The opposite of a role model isn't a bad kid. It's someone who fixes. Fixing feels great for you and teaches them nothing. If you go up there and tie six pairs of shoes, you've had a lovely time and helped nobody."
The week ahead + the teams (8 min):
The close (2 min):
"Team 1 - you're up today. Everyone else, you're building. Let's go."
Build these teams over the weekend, deliberately, and don't let learners pick. You're balancing three things at once: who can handle a Spark learner without taking over, who needs to work with someone new, and who can physically build. Mix returners and new learners in every team. Then hold the line when someone asks to swap - "these are the teams" is a complete sentence, and it's the first small test of the week.
Standard rhythm.
Standard rhythm.
Standard rhythm.
Standard rhythm.
Lunch and downtime, uninterrupted. Nothing is scheduled in this hour and nothing should be. Dilemmas run at 8:30 on the days they run, precisely so this stays clear.
12:55 - Team 1 leaves. The one exception, and it applies to the day's Spark team only. Everybody else stays at lunch until 1:00 as normal.
Remind Team 1 at the start of lunch, not at 12:54. They should be moving before the Spark learners do, so they arrive in position rather than into the middle of a transition.
12:55 - today's team leaves. Team 1 heads upstairs. They go up before the Spark learners move so they're already in position rather than arriving into chaos.
Their three jobs, in order:
Meanwhile in D2: everyone else runs D.E.A.R. as normal, 1:00–1:30. Nobody misses anything by going up, and nobody misses anything by staying.
Say it to the team on the way out, every single day: "You're not the guide. You're the role model. Notice, wait, and ask - don't fix.say this exactly" The failure mode for D2 this week is enthusiastic overstepping, and it comes from good intentions every time.
1:30 - Team 1 comes back down and writes while it's fresh. Twenty minutes, in the Spark journal, four questions. Same four every day so the entries can be read as a set on Thursday.
Guide moves: read over shoulders and push question two. Learners will write "Spark was loud" - that's an observation about Spark, not an answer. The question is what they found hard. "I got impatient" is the answer you're looking for, and it takes a prompt to get there.
Everyone else, 1:30–1:50: keep reading, or start hauling boat materials out so Quest opens with zero setup time. Quest is only 50 minutes and this week every minute of it counts.
Today is not about cardboard. It's about whether four people who didn't choose each other can make one decision together. The boat is the excuse; the negotiation is the curriculum. Expect the design conversation to be harder than any cutting they do later in the week - and let it be hard.
The brief (8 min) - read it out, then post it:
Then: "Some of these will sink. That is a completely normal outcome and the sinking ones get the loudest cheer of the day. What isn't normal is a boat that four people built and only one person understands."
Two minutes of physics (5 min):
Don't teach a lesson - demonstrate. A ball of foil sinks; the same foil shaped into a bowl floats. Ask what changed. Land it in one sentence: "Wide and flat beats tall and narrow. Water pushes up on however much of it you shove out of the way." Then stop talking about physics.
Design (25 min):
Materials list & close (12 min):
Carry forward: Designs go on the wall above the build area. Nobody starts cutting today - a team that cuts before it agrees is a team that will argue on Wednesday.
Standard rhythm, plus the new thing: the build area has to be genuinely clear at 3:00. Cardboard offcuts spread fast. Establish the boat-zone standard today, on day one, before there's much mess - it's far easier than reclaiming it on Thursday.
Watch for a callout aimed at whoever gave up their own design for the team's. That's a real cost and it deserves to be named - and naming it today makes it likelier tomorrow.
One question, and ask Team 1 first: "What surprised you about being upstairs?"
Send-off by name.
Talking points for this week's email. Drop these into an AI assistant along with two or three live notes from your actual week - a name, a moment, something that surprised you - and it'll give you a draft in your own voice. The specifics are what make it land; the structure below is just the scaffolding.
The draft underneath is an example of the shape and the tone, not a template to send as-is. A parent who gets the same email as every other parent can tell.
Subject: This week D2 goes out into the school
Hi families,
Week 3 started today and it's a big one. Two things are running at once, and they're deliberately the same thing.
First: every learner is now in a team of four or five. One afternoon this week, each team goes up to our youngest studio to help during reading time - walking Spark learners up from lunch, getting the reading corner settled, and sitting and reading with them. We spent this morning on what being a role model actually involves, which turns out to be mostly noticing, waiting, and asking rather than helping. The hardest instruction I gave was "don't fix things for them."
Second: those same teams are building cardboard boats. Real ones. On Friday we're going to a pool and each boat gets tested with a learner sitting in it. Some of them will sink. That's part of it.
Two asks. If you have access to large cardboard boxes - appliance boxes especially - we will take all of them. And Friday's trip details and forms are coming separately this week; please watch for those.
- [your name]