Self awareness and social confidence go hand in hand. Understanding how to plan, developing executive functioning skills, developing social skills, understanding how to identify emotions and having tools to deal with them are all part of ONE Academy’s SELF time. SELF is an acronym that stands for Self reflection, Enhanced learning, Lesson support, and Foundational skills. This is a flexible and intentional time for students to receive specific guidance, remediation, or enrichment depending on what they need in order to flourish, and is facilitated by teachers, counselors, special education teachers, gifted teachers, or other educators. These areas of development are grounded in years of study and experience with mental health and wellness practices, and are beneficial for all developing children. Gifted children will find goal areas and areas of strengths to build upon. Students with special needs will receive direct instruction in their areas of need. All students will explore personal interests, practice and plan social skills development, engage in mindfulness practices that are rooted in wellbeing, address behavior and emotional regulation concerns, discuss healthy tools for positive relationships, and build resilience and wellbeing with the guidance of trained educators. 

Collaborative learning is woven throughout state and national standards for good reason: humans are innately social beings, and we learn best through interaction. The research is clear; children who lack meaningful social connection struggle academically, emotionally, and developmentally. The effects of pandemic-era isolation only reinforced what child development experts have long understood: social engagement isn't a supplement to learning. It is learning.

We are not simply brains in bodies. Movement, play, and human connection are fundamental to how children process and retain knowledge, build identity, and develop resilience. When students spend their days seated, isolated from the broader world, they miss something education cannot afford to ignore; a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves.

Community is not a backdrop to learning. It is one of its most powerful engines.

Research consistently links social belonging and peer collaboration to stronger academic outcomes, higher intrinsic motivation, reduced behavioral challenges, and greater long-term social mobility. But belonging doesn't happen by accident, it isn't produced by a daily recess period or a weekly group project. It is cultivated with intentionality, guided by educators and developmental specialists who understand what healthy connection looks like at every stage of growth.

At ONE Academy, social and community engagement are not extracurricular, they are core to our model.

Every student, at every grade level, will complete a standards-aligned community service project as a graduation requirement for each year of school. These projects are designed to meet academic goals while giving students real, meaningful ways to contribute to and connect with their community. As students advance, so does the depth of their involvement. By the time they reach high school, students are leading their own community-driven initiatives through entrepreneurship, internships, and industry partnerships, developing the skills, relationships, and sense of purpose that define a life well-lived.

Time spent in our natural world is currently reserved for select preschool students and adults with the privileges of having leisure time in between work days and who have access to natural spaces. The data on the impacts of time in nature to our mental and physical wellbeing is overwhelming and undeniable. This applies to preschoolers, yes. But it also applies to you and me, to 4th graders, 8th graders, the elderly, and everyone in between. The impacts of time in nature on mental wellbeing are profound alone, but data shows that it also leads to better cognitive function and academic outcomes in children.

For decades, US educators have been hearing about the schools in Finland and how effective they are, but struggling to find ways to integrate the Finnish model of education to the US’s economic and societal systems, but with modern technology and universal access, this type of platform has never been more available to our children. 

At ONE Academy outdoor play and project-based learning are not just extracurriculars; they are integral to the way children understand the world and themselves. We prioritize our communities and nature as a co-teachers, using Oklahoma’s rich and diverse natural settings as living classrooms. Montessori-inspired, instructional time will be in person every day of the week and will be collaborative, relationship-focused, and hands-on, allowing for a break from the screens and making the teaching and learning process meaningful, restorative, and grounding for developing minds.

Students and their families will be given the choice to be issued a tablet that uses groundbreaking technology free of the damaging blue light for their virtual work.

Students will be incentivized to spend extra time outside playing and learning throughout their week, and families will be encouraged to enjoy the many health benefits of time in nature as an essential part of life. Students will learn in community spaces, parks and in our own forested space whenever possible, and students will learn that the entire world around them is a classroom, contributing to the habit and patterns of lifelong learning.