The Learnery is our microschool specialising in family education and alternative education for youths. Built with Apprenticeship, Beauty, Craft, Design, our microschool will help Singapore meet human resource challenges of the 21st century and beyond.

The Big Picture

2/3 of Singapore adults experienced at least 1 adverse childhood experience¹. 17000 youths are not in school, work or training². Our national education system is outdated³. The bottleneck is the high-stakes PSLE for 11+ year-olds, a policy that has caused long term mental harm to children⁴. On a less sombre side, adult workers (from lower SES backgrounds when they were children) reported greater social mobility. All age ranges, from 21 to above 55, prioritise growth/learning as their task significance.⁵ If young and old human adults find personal development a highlight of learning, it is because it has always been so.

The truth: Children have no problem learning when assigned tasks are meaningful. They bail out when childhood is purposeless and tasks are unaligned to who they are, and unrealistic to what they can do. The gap between what is experienced by child learners (even for high achievers) vs adult learners in Singapore is big and concerning. Why are children so stressed in schools and exposed to so much danger so young? Why should they find life more bearable only when they are adults? We have to close the gap.

“In 2020 UNESCO called for the transformation of schools and universities into lifelong learning institutions,the placing of vulnerable groups at the core of a lifelong learning policy agenda and establishing lifelong learning as a common good (UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2020)…. True lifelong learning includes preparation for paid employment, but also encompasses learning before a working life begins, and after it concludes. While preparation for thriving at work is often at the heart of formal post-secondary education, preparation for thriving in life requires personal development and mental and physical health education. The latter may become increasingly important in a post-pandemic world with less paid work. Ongoing education for interest, enrichment and social engagement is an attractive solution, and a challenge, in a world where the chances of being a centenarian are increased (Gratton and Scott, 2016). Such a world is likely, for those so privileged, to include increased demand for education as and how it is desired:continuing education that is flexible and personalized, online, on-demand and peer to peer (Resei, Friedl et al., 2019).”⁶

The job scope is clear. As policymakers, parents, caregivers, and educators who are involved in nurturing children, we must know:

• what accounts as meaningful learning to children
• how responsive adult stakeholders respond to children’s learning needs
• how an education system is designed for psychological safety so that a learner is unharmed

In short, we need to build an education system that is meaningful, responsive, and safe for all children to flourish. This is our work in The Learnery.

Research Area 1

Children’s Rights

Why is this important? Children’s rights are notoriously under-discussed in the area of education in Singapore. As a signatory of the UNCRC since 1995, Singapore has yet to fully subscribe to the tenets of the UNCRC in education policies. The long-term effects of bullying in schools by adults and children, psychological harm from neglecting children’s participation in the things that concern them the most, have yet to be studied. Furthermore, the lack of a child protection policy in mainstream schools and education settings continue to be a red flag issue.

Our overarching belief is that the lives and voices of children matter all the time. There is no trendy time to give them their say at the table. Including children’s rights does not mean letting children do whatever they want (think of women’s rights and men’s rights). It means giving them full participation as members of society that they are nurtured into.

What have we done? Within Little U, we asked a student to design our Child Safeguarding Policy. We set up a role for a Child Welfare Officer (CWO) to be part of the Operations Team. This allows the CWO to have authority to enforce child safeguarding guidelines across the community. Beyond Little U, we organised the inaugural Alternative Education Forum 2025 : Children’s Rights to champion the rights of children in education reform.

What do we hope to achieve? We hope to see a Child Protection Policy in every education setting in Singapore where children are involved. We welcome leaders and groups to study our work in child safeguarding, specifically in an educational setting. You may adopt or adapt our child safeguarding policy, free of charge, to your organisation. As part of academic integrity, please credit Little U in your policy.

Research Area 2

Healing from Learning Trauma

Why is this important? Learning trauma is the result of the negative emotional and psychological impact that harmful learning environments (at home and school) and practices can have on students. Chronically disempowered children lose their autonomy and agency to make their own decisions. Instead, they end up fearful. They are afraid to make mistakes. In adulthood, they withdraw from difficult, emotional challenges required to mature as healthy adults. In the end, learning trauma can contribute to a reduced quality of life and dysfunctional family dynamics.

Our overarching belief is that the psychological safety of children is non-negotiable. Trauma can impair cognitive functions like focus, memory, and information processing, making it harder for children to learn. There is no benefit in abusing children (physically, emotionally, verbally, or neglectfully) to make them behave for short-term gains. It is criminal and goes against the Children and Young Persons Act 1993 (Article 6).

What have we done? We designed the entire Little U learning experience around trauma-informed care. People who become members have to agree to our trauma-informed guidelines before they join. The Little U operations team, Youth Track educators and Family Track parent-leaders undergo 2 hours of training a month to learn about Trauma-Informed Education (TIE) and Competency-Based Education (CBE). Students have recovered from learning trauma within a year or more. In 2026, the Alternative Education Forum 2026 : Education Reform will develop trauma-informed awareness in education policies and practices with stakeholders in education.

What do we hope to achieve? We hope to see TIE embedded across all education approaches – from homeschooling to mainstream schooling – so that any child, regardless of background, will be able to learn safely throughout their precious, growing-up years. We welcome leaders and groups to study our work in trauma-informed care, specifically in an educational setting. You may adapt or adopt our trauma-informed guidelines, free of charge, to your organisation. As part of academic integrity, please credit Little U in your policy.

Research Area 3

Family/National Wellness

Why is this important? A family that learns together, stays together. What we mean is, a family genuinely interested in the well-being of one another will work as a team to care for and protect each other. This is because such a family is emotionally invested and present, felt in the lives of all the members. Nobody is left behind. A family is the smallest unit of society. Grown to a national size, millions of families that learn to become emotionally present in their lives of friends, neighbours, communities, and work, will become a nation that is flourishing in positive moral values. This effect reduces blame, shame, isolation, addiction, vices, and crime in society. There is less need to enact punitive policies.

What have we done? Besides TIE, we designed the Little U learning experience around Competency-Based Education (CBE). This is a strengths-based, skills-based, mastery-based learning system that promotes every child and family’s uniqueness. When following a set of prescribed subjects, children of certain families will feel inadequate to learn. Furthermore, their families feel helpless to assist. In a CBE learning system, we look first to the family’s origin story, their profile and natural interests. Then we develop the child’s scope of skills to learn from the ground up. There is no one size fits all, so there is no need for standardised exams. We use only authentic assessments. From the assessments, we put them together in a portfolio transcript (the MTC Learning Record) for graduates of Little U to send off for work and higher education admissions. For younger children, we pilot micro-credentials developed with each family that can be upsized to the MTC Learning Record when they are ready. Families may also adapt the micro-credentials to their preferred record keeping format. In the Alternative Education Forum 2027: Family/National Systems we will be advocating for the wellness of families of origins and families of care. The family is often a child’s first education system. Families deserve their place in the national story of education.

What do we hope to achieve? Dignity and respect for neurodiverse learners. Whether you are a child or an adult, your natural strengths should be acknowledged and developed as far as possible. We always start with children because they are the most vulnerable group of people in the world. The kind of people who treat vulnerable children with dignity and respect when nobody is looking are the leaders we want for our nation.

Group 1

Homeschooling families who seek a long-term community for growth and social outreach.

We journey with you. We celebrate as your child masters foundational life skills. We capture his/her learning in Little U projects and elsewhere as micro-credentials (see here and here). For your high schooler, we have a pathway to work and higher education. It is built around formally prepared, credit-based portfolio projects pegged to rigorous learning outcomes, standards recognised by institutions and employers.

In terms of fees, we have designed a family-based subscription at the Family Track so that big families are not penalised, but feel rewarded. Our Youth Track for high school is a one-subscription-for-all-modules per enrolled student. It is pegged to a rate that a youth working part-time on weekends can afford.

We guarantee you will find nothing close in Singapore that can compare with our pricing and ethics of care in pedagogy, curriculum and assessment design for customised learning. In return, we seek your long term partnership to care for the other beneficiaries on our list.

Group 2

Schooling families of neurodivergent children whose caregivers are willing to take responsibility for their children’s education.

We will build up your child’s education with you. We are willing to journey with you for the years ahead. Using our collective expertise from homeschooling approaches, we will enable you to develop your home and family learning culture so that your child receives the best interventions for his or her education. You may join our calendar of activities to start off, and then develop some projects of your own to build your parent-leadership capacity.

Group 3

Children who suffer from school refusal and learning trauma.

We will work closely with your parents, therapist(s), school leaders, social workers, and agencies to get you safe and healed so that you can pick yourself up without harm. It may take one year or a few years. We won’t abandon you when things are rocky. We put the power in your hands – you are welcome to leave us anytime you wish. It won’t be the other way round.

Group 4

Children who are unable to access mainstream schools.

Whether you are stateless, a foreigner, or not given an education since early childhood, we will work with your caregivers and social services to ensure you obtain a high-quality education regardless of your learning abilities, station in life, or ethnicity. Learning happens everywhere. We will use our collective creativity as a community to help you see your strengths and build a meaningful life with us in Singapore.

1. https://www.imh.com.sg/Mental-Health-Resources/Conditions-and-Challenges/Pages/Adverse-Childhood-Experiences.aspx ↩︎
2. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/around-17000-youth-in-singapore-are-not-in-school-work-or-training ↩︎
3. https://everychild.sg/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/White-Paper-Education-Reform.pdf ↩︎
4. https://everychild.sg/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Academic-Stress-among-Primary-Schoolers-in-Singapore_-Investigating-the-mental-health-effects-of-a-childhood-defined-by-PSLE.pdf ↩︎
5. https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/docs/default-source/ips/ips-exchange-series-26.pdf ↩︎
6. https://www.ibo.org/globalassets/new-structure/research/pdfs/micro-credentials-processes-final-report.pdf ↩︎