Center for Community Engagement

The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) serves as Head-Royce’s cross-divisional K–12 organizing hub for all civic engagement initiatives, working both with students and professional community members to promote responsible and engaged citizenship through local and experiential learning, co-curricular programming and capstone opportunities. 



Rebuilding Together
Local Engagement

 

Local Engagement

From kindergarten to senior year, our students connect with vibrant change-makers and impactful organizations throughout the East Bay for in-field learning, volunteering, and activism. To the best of our ever-growing ability, we approach these community connections with critical self-awareness and cultural humility. Head-Royce has a complicated history, one which we are openly examining as we cultivate responsible citizenship in our students.

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Channel Islands Trip
Global Engagement

 

Global Engagement

Be it in the classroom or out in the field, the goal of our global education program is to instill in our students the competencies of a globally engaged citizen — one who is empathic, self-aware, able to connect across differences, and understand multiple perspectives. The telos of acquiring such skills and traits is to practice responsible global citizenship by taking action on issues of equity and sustainability.

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Big Build
Hands-On Design

Hands-On Design

The Big Build is a beloved interdivisional project that takes place every spring. This project was created by alumn Miles Burton ’17 who spent four summers working with the Tinkering School where he brought hands-on design learning to kids of all ages. 

During the month of May, a dedicated group of Head-Royce Seniors leads full-day design-build challenges for our Lower Schoolers. Each class of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders has a day dedicated to them, where they journey with their Senior guides across the street to South Campus to learn the use of power tools and then build something big and exciting. This hands-on project offers our Lower Schoolers the chance to use machines and hand-skills while collaboratively solving a complex design challenge.



GOA Founding Member Badge
Global Online Academy

Global Online Academy

As a founding member of the Global Online Academy (GOA), Head-Royce has offered interdisciplinary online courses to Upper School students since 2011. Students who enroll in GOA classes collaborate with peers from a range of independent schools, from Catlin Gabel and Dalton to the American School in Japan and King’s Academy in Jordan.

GOA allows us to expand the Upper School course catalog to include the languages Arabic and Japanese, and more specialized classes like Architecture, Bioethics, and Positive Psychology. Many classes are interdisciplinary, like Global Health, 9/11 in a Global Context, and Prisons and Criminal Law. The courses are all taught by faculty affiliated with member schools, and independent schools with similar academic standards as Head-Royce, and each course is capped at 18 students.

GOA’s annual Catalyst Conference is a public, online exhibition of student research, focused on social justice and advocacy. In 2020, the Upper School History Department adopted the Catalyst Conference as a capstone experience for their 10th grade United States History research project.



6th Grade Community Engagement Day
Curricular Connections

 

Curricular Connections

It is impossible to imagine the scope of Head-Royce’s community engagement work without a careful look at our curriculum and our ever-strengthening commitment to equity and inclusion. From our Kindergartners to our Seniors, every grade level at Head-Royce immerses students in curricula aiming to instill self-awareness, compassion for others, and purpose-driven action. Our goal is Mission-aligned and clear: to have the study and practice of equity, inclusion, and civic engagement suffuse every classroom.



Adulting 101 2023
Mentorship

 

Mentorship

Whether it is our students being mentored by alumni, HRS parents, and other local professionals or students serving as mentors to younger children, mentoring relationships provide a wonderful opportunity for shared learning, growth, and joy where the experience gained is equally valuable for both mentor and mentee.

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