The Vancouver Learning Centre
is the "Village" it takes
to get the very best outcome
for each learner.
The VLC is a Learning Centre, not a school. Click here for clarity.

The VLC is not a school but a Specialist Learning Centre. The VLC delivers a team-based process. A teaching captain is assigned to oversee the program delivery and to be the main contact with the parents who then become an integrated part of the team. Schools can then be involved as appropriate.

In the case of home schooling, the curriculum, homework tasks, testing, and the program to earn credentials and provide oversight to the curriculum is up to the distance education school. This becomes the learner’s school and the VLC will work collaboratively with the school’s contact person and will actively address all IEPs or special needs developed by that school.

Whether the student attends on site at VLC and remains as part of a class or works with a distance education school, the VLC becomes the specialist provider of one to one teaching based on the special needs of the learner in collaboration with the learner’s parents and the contact person assigned by the school.

The Vancouver Learning Centre
is the "Village" it takes
to get the very best outcome
for each learner.
The VLC is a Learning Centre, not a school. See here for clarity.

Executive Function

The emergence of human ability to think flexibly — to reason in an abstract manner, to organize, to plan ahead, to initiate, to adapt, to solve problems, to apply new learning to novel tasks — form the overarching network of skills needed for excellence in learning and thinking across the broad array of cognitive, academic and emotional performance. At the VLC, the enhancement of these skills are integrated in every program, as well as having special focus in some programs as needed. However, such second and third level skills are also based on the mastery of the primary first level tasks, such as learning to read, to write, to spell and to calculate. While executive function skills are very robust and often develop without the primary tools, in our society, and especially at this time, being able to read with understanding and having the language skills to communicate orally and in a written fashion are key to ongoing and future success.

This complex skill draws on many other skills, and learners develop an internal guidance system or dialogue to guide their thinking in a step-by-step fashion, often by modelling the systems they see used by the adults in their lives, parents and teachers.

A delay in some aspect of the “feeder” skills often delays the development of executive function skills. This affects behaviour as well as emotional maturity, along with academic and cognitive skills. School and life success is impacted in complex ways by the delay in the development of executive function skills proactively.

At the Vancouver Learning Centre, wherever executive function skills are compromised, our faculty are trained to apply the signature programs we have developed over the decades to address these skills proactively.