Everything the studio made in the first two weeks was written without evidence, because there wasn't any yet. Four weeks later there is. Today the Personal Working Guide and the Trading Card both get a version two - written in red pen on top of v1, so the change is visible rather than described. Schedule ownership starts, with a mandatory plan check at 11:20.
By 3:15 today every learner has a PWG v2 and a Trading Card v2, with at least one thing crossed out of v1 - and can say how they know the new version is true.
"It was all right" is not an acceptable review of four weeks of evidence. One real cross per learner.
"I work best in quiet" is a feeling. "I work best in quiet, because Wednesday" is a finding.
Write the plan down, and check it at 11:20. Learners can state both, and know that being off-plan isn't the problem.
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 (3 min):
Hold up a Personal Working Guide v1 - ideally your own, if you filled one in. Read one line off it.
"You wrote these on the second day of school. You had no evidence. You were guessing about yourself, and that was the right thing to do at the time because guessing was all anyone had."
The core (10 min):
"Then four weeks happened. You built a boat with people you didn't pick. You sat on the floor with a five-year-old. You've spent a whole week on a project that still doesn't look like anything yet. You know things about how you work now that you could not have known in August."
Name the evidence sources out loud, pointing at each on the wall:
Then set the week: "Everything we made in the first two weeks gets a version two this week. Not because version one was wrong - because it was a guess, and now it can be evidence."
Schedule ownership, and where its rails are (7 min):
Be exact. Vagueness here produces chaos and then a clampdown, which costs more than starting tight.
The ritual levels up today. Same ten minutes, same notebook - but from now on a goal has to be specific and checkable. This is a ritual upgrade, not a launch, which is why it lives here rather than eating a morning.
Give one worked example and then get out of the way:
The test is one question: "Could somebody else look at your week and say whether you did it?" If not, it's a wish. Rewrite it.
This pairs directly with the PWG v2 work this afternoon - both are about replacing what you assumed about yourself with what you can point at.
Standard rhythm. Week 5 note: math sits inside schedule ownership now, so the block may move - what doesn't move is that it happens and the PWG opens first.
Standard rhythm.
Standard rhythm.
Then one written question before they touch v2: "Reading all of this, what's one thing you'd tell yourself in Week 1?" That sentence becomes the opening line of their PWG v2.
A learner this age will write a genuinely excellent plan at 8:30 and have abandoned it by ten o'clock - not through defiance, just through the ordinary drift of a morning. "Write the plan before you run it" is necessary and it is nowhere near sufficient. Without a forced mid-morning correction, the first anyone finds out that the plan died is 3:10, by which point the day is gone.
Five minutes, standing, every day this week. Non-negotiable.
Tone is everything here. This is a navigation check, not a confession. If it carries any flavor of being in trouble, hands stop going up by Wednesday and the block becomes theater. Say it plainly today, because today sets it for the week: "Being off your plan isn't the problem. Not noticing is the problem.say this exactly"
What the guide watches for: the learner whose hand never goes up all week. Either they're genuinely excellent at this - possible - or they've stopped looking at the sheet, which is the same as not having one. Check privately rather than calling it out.
This costs five minutes off the 11:20 block, every day of Week 5. On Wednesday and Thursday that means Town Hall runs 11:25–12:00 rather than 11:20–12:00. Worth it - a thirty-five-minute Town Hall works fine, and a studio that loses three afternoons to abandoned plans does not.
Standard rhythm.
The Personal Working Guide and the Trading Card are the two artifacts most likely to have been written once and never opened again - which is exactly the fate this week exists to prevent. Both get a v2 written on top of, or beside, v1, so the learner sees their own change rather than being told about it.
1 - Mark up PWG v1 (10 min):
2 - Write PWG v2 (20 min):
One page, same sections as v1. The difference is that every claim now has to survive "how do you know?" - and the answer has to be something that happened, not something they feel.
Guide circulates asking only that question. Nothing else.
3 - Trading Card v2 (18 min):
Carry forward: PWG v1 and v2 get stapled together, in that order. Both trading cards hang together. At Exhibition the learner shows their family both of each - the change between them is the evidence that the quest worked.
Standard rhythm. If the studio has been hitting the Standard consistently, this is the week to hand the ten minutes back. Do it as a real moment, not an announcement: Quest returns to 1:50–2:50, maintenance to 2:50–3:00. Say plainly that they earned it and that it goes the other way just as easily.
If the ten minutes have been handed back (see W5D1) - this block is 2:50–3:00 and Quest ran to 2:50.
Callouts for anyone who crossed something out honestly, and for anyone whose hand went up at the 11:20 check. Both are the same skill - changing your mind about yourself in public.
One question: "What did you cross out?" Three or four voices.
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: Version two of everything
Hi families,
Week 5 is the reflective one. Everything the studio built in the first two weeks gets a second version this week - not because the first was wrong, but because it was written on day two with no evidence, and there's four weeks of evidence now.
Today it was the Personal Working Guide and the Trading Card. Rather than handing out blank pages, I gave every learner their original and a red pen: tick what turned out true, cross what turned out wrong, question mark what you're unsure about. Everyone had to cross at least one thing. Then they wrote version two, and the only question I asked all afternoon was "how do you know?"
We also introduced schedule ownership - learners now choose the order they work through their blocks, within clear limits. There are two rules: write your plan down before you run it, and at 11:20 every day we stop and I ask who's currently off their plan. That second one matters more than the first. Writing a good plan is easy; noticing at eleven that you've abandoned it is the actual skill.
Both versions of everything come home at Exhibition, side by side. The difference between them is the interesting part.
- [your name]