Child-Led Mastery Academy

Where are you
on the path today?

NEW HERE

Your first week

Before any course, one thing: watch a child play and say what you see. Eighty-four seconds with Sam and a mound of green dough. Then a short tour of the rooms, and one conversation in the community.

Begin your first week

RETURNING

Continue your pathway

Pick up your credential work where you left it. Foundations, Practitioner, Specialist: the road is the same for everyone, and nobody has to hurry down it.

Open the pathway

This quarter ยท Autumn 2026

The child before the strategy.

THE FOCUS

Reading academic readiness in play

Three months on one skill: seeing what a child's hands, heart, and head are building before we reach for a plan. The Name the Learning Lab is the practice ground; the live sessions are where we compare notes.

LIVE WITH SALLY

[Three dates]

[Session 1 title], [date]
[Session 2 title], [date]
[Session 3 title], [date]

Add to calendar
NEW IN THE LIBRARY

Sam's Playdough Invitation

The first interactive lab: one clip, fifteen study cards, twelve scored questions across See, Name, and Explain.

Open the lab

The pathway

Three credentials. One road.

YEAR ONE

Child-Led Learning Foundations

The four skills in their core form: Relationships and Self, Environment and Materials, Children and Learning, Documentation and Reflection.

YEAR TWO

Child-Led Learning Practitioner

Each skill expanded and applied to your own room, with a portfolio of real observations as the evidence.

YEAR THREE

Child-Led Learning Specialist

The full credential: you can see the learning, name it in language that earns respect, and teach others to do the same.

Photo: a child's hands pressing a cutter into dough, adult hands nowhere in frame

THE WAY IN

Name the Learning Lab

Watch a real child at play. Describe only what your eyes can confirm. Then name the skill, in the vocabulary a therapist or a principal would recognize, and say why it matters to a family. Every lab is one clip and one lens, and your score shows you what you are learning to see.

Start with Sam

What do you need today?

Six doors. Each one opens onto one thing.

Photo: a child mid-tantrum seen from behind, adult kneeling

Relationships and Self

Behaviour and big emotions

The child is not giving you a hard time. The child is having a hard time. Start with the one lesson that changes what you see first.

[Lesson or replay title]
Photo: a shelf of open-ended materials, morning light

Environment and Materials

Children aren't engaging

Before you change the children, look at the room. The environment is doing some of the teaching whether you planned it or not.

[Lesson or replay title]
Photo: small world play, a child's face close to the figures

Environment and Materials

I want richer, deeper play

Depth is not added; it is protected. One field guide on the invitation that keeps children coming back for a week.

[Field guide title]
Photo: a notebook open beside a block build

Children and Learning

I need help with planning

Observe first, then plan. A planning method that starts with what the children did yesterday, not with a theme.

[Lesson or template title]
Photo: a parent and educator looking at a photo together

Documentation and Reflection

Families don't understand play

They will when you can say, at 0:47, what her hands were doing and why it matters for a pencil. The sentence that earns respect, and how to build it.

[Lesson or lab title]
Photo: an empty classroom at the end of the day, chair pushed back

Relationships and Self

I'm feeling overwhelmed

You are the regulated adult in the room, and no one regulates you. Begin here, before any other door.

[Lesson or replay title]

Join us live

Same room, once a month.

Live coaching, Fireside Chats, and planning sessions with Sally. Bring the child you are puzzling over.

  • [DATE][Session title]
  • [DATE][Session title]
  • [DATE][Session title]
See what's coming up

Ask a question

You are not the only one.

Post the moment you can't read yet: the child, what they did, what you did. Sally and the team answer within [timeframe], and someone in [number] countries has been exactly where you are.

Go to the community

Understanding precedes strategy. That is the whole Academy, in three words.