Learning target 5.2
Community Engagement & Purpose
Contribute meaningfully to communities, act with others on real needs, reflect on impact, and develop a personal sense of purpose over time.
T3Practised disposition
Orientations students grow into — practised over time, observed across contexts. Assessed by what they consistently do, not what they say.
Criteria — what growth looks like
Every learning target has a set of criteria specifying what growth looks like at each band. For this practised-disposition LT, each criterion lists what would be observed (and what would be confused with it) rather than rubric levels.
6 criteria across 6 bands.
Band A— Water + Air Dragons
K–2ages 5–7
A.1The student carries out their classroom job without needing reminders on most occasions, and articulates how that job helps the class function.
Observation indicators
- The student carries out their classroom job (monitor, tidying, door-holder, register-helper) on most occasions without adult reminders.
- The student articulates — when asked or spontaneously — how their job contributes to the class running, not only that they are doing it.
- The student takes small uninvited initiative (picking something up, setting out a chair) that helps the class function, beyond only their named job.
Confusable behaviours
- Compliance with the job rota (doing it because told to) mistaken for community participation. Distinction: the disposition shows in the student's own account of why it matters, not only task completion.
- Showing off the job to earn adult praise, mistaken for genuine contribution. Distinction: the contribution continues when the adult is not watching.
Absence indicators
- The student needs repeated reminders to do their class job week after week, and shows no shift toward initiating.
- The student reports the job as "what I have to do" rather than "what helps our class".
Conversation prompts
- Tell me about your classroom job — what does it do for our class?
- Tell me about a time you helped even though no-one asked — what made you do it?
- What's something you do every week that makes our class work better?
Band B— Earth Dragons
G3–4ages 8–10
B.1The student spontaneously includes peers who appear left out, across multiple occasions and varied group contexts, treating belonging as something the group actively creates.
Observation indicators
- The student spontaneously includes a peer who appears left out (sitting alone, not being chosen, quieter than usual, declining to join), across multiple occasions in varied group contexts.
- The student invites in peers outside their usual friendship group, not only their closest friends.
- The student notices when a new or returning student is still at the edge of the group and does something active to bring them in.
Confusable behaviours
- Being chosen as "kind one" by adults (rotating the left-out peer to pair with the compliant "kind" student) mistaken for authentic inclusion. Distinction: the disposition shows in self-initiated inclusion, not in adult-assigned pairings.
- One-off inclusion gesture (inviting once, then not sustaining) mistaken for active belonging-building. Distinction: the disposition is a pattern across weeks, not a single act.
Absence indicators
- The student consistently stays within closest friendship group, with no observable noticing of peers outside it.
- When a peer appears left out, the student continues own activity without pause, even when the signal is visible.
Conversation prompts
- Tell me about a time you helped someone feel included — what did you do?
- How do you notice when someone is on the edge of the group?
- Tell me about a friend you've made this year who wasn't already in your group — how did it start?
Band C— Fire Dragons
G5–6ages 10–12
C.1Across a D2R project cycle, the student identifies a real school need unprompted, contributes substantively to a team proposal, and follows through on their share of the work to completion.
Observation indicators
- Across at least one D2R (discover-to-refine) project cycle, the student identifies a real school need unprompted, rather than only responding to an adult's suggested project.
- The student contributes substantively to a team proposal — shaping the idea, not only supplying effort.
- The student follows through on their share of the work to project completion, not only at the planning phase.
- The student is visible in the doing as well as in the proposing, across the arc of a project.
Confusable behaviours
- Enthusiastic project-start without follow-through mistaken for community-building disposition. Distinction: the disposition is the arc — notice, propose, do — not only the sparkle at the start.
- Leading all aspects of the project at the cost of teammates' contribution mistaken for initiative. Distinction: the disposition is shown in shared contribution, not dominance.
Absence indicators
- The student contributes ideas at planning meetings but drops off in the execution phase, across multiple projects.
- The student participates only when the project is initiated by an adult or assigned by a teacher.
Conversation prompts
- What do you notice our school needs that people aren't already working on?
- When do you find it easiest to follow through on a project to the end, and when do you lose momentum?
- Tell me about a project that didn't go as planned — what did you learn about contributing?
Band D— Metal + Light Dragons
G7–8ages 12–13
D.1Through a Light Dragon capstone or extended D2R work, the student collaborates substantively across difference, engages with evidence of whether the work made a difference, and articulates why the work matters to them personally.
Observation indicators
- Through a Light Dragon capstone or extended D2R project, the student collaborates substantively with team members different from themselves (background, language, perspective, skill-set).
- The student engages with evidence of whether the project made a difference (collecting signal, welcoming disconfirming evidence, not only celebrating effort).
- The student articulates — in Reflection 360 or unprompted conversation — why the work matters to them personally, with specificity about the connection to who they are becoming.
- The student treats difference within the team as strengthening the work, not as friction to avoid.
Confusable behaviours
- Project-impact rhetoric (describing outcomes without evidence) mistaken for genuine engagement with whether the work made a difference. Distinction: the disposition is visible in the student's willingness to look at uncomfortable signals.
- Collaborating with similar peers by default mistaken for cross-difference collaboration. Distinction: look for real-difference teaming (background, skill, perspective) not just multi-person teaming.
Absence indicators
- The student's project reflection focuses on effort and process without engagement with impact signal, across multiple projects.
- The student gravitates consistently to same-profile teammates even when mixed-team options are available.
Conversation prompts
- How has working with this team changed what you think you can do together?
- What's the evidence you have that your project actually made a difference?
- Where does this work connect to who you're becoming — and where is the connection still fuzzy?
Band E— Stone Dragons
G9–10ages 14–16
E.1The student leads a sustained initiative addressing a genuine need, navigates institutional and relational obstacles as they arise, and articulates both achieved impact and the limits imposed by institutional context.
Observation indicators
- The student leads a sustained initiative (beyond a single project cycle) addressing a genuine need, visibly carrying it through setbacks.
- The student navigates specific institutional and relational obstacles (approvals, budget, scheduling, friction with a gatekeeper) as they arise, rather than stalling at each one.
- The student articulates — in Reflection 360 or unprompted — both the impact of what was achieved and the limits that institutional context imposed.
- The student continues contribution to the initiative across terms, even when the visibility fades.
Confusable behaviours
- Initiative-as-performance (highly visible launch, quiet fade after the audience moves on) mistaken for sustained engagement. Distinction: the disposition is shown in continuity after the spotlight.
- Over-personalising the institutional obstacles (framing friction as "they're against me") mistaken for navigating systems. Distinction: the disposition shows in reading the constraint as system rather than persecution.
Absence indicators
- The student's initiatives are highly visible at launch and drop without follow-through, across multiple projects.
- The student gives up at the first institutional obstacle, without attempting alternative routes or sustained negotiation.
Conversation prompts
- Where has sustaining this initiative taken something from you — and where has it given something back?
- Tell me about an obstacle you hit this term — what was the institutional lesson in it?
- What's the difference, for you, between giving up and knowing when a project has genuinely run its course?
Band F— Sky Dragons
G11–12ages 16–18
F.1The student's post-school choices (path, community involvement, roles) trace specifically and observably to their sustained prior engagement, as evidenced across Reflection 360 and the preceding two years of engagement history — and when asked about purpose the student points to that engagement with specificity rather than to abstracted articulation.
Observation indicators
- Across Reflection 360 and at least two years of project, initiative, or community-engagement records, the post-school choice the student is actually making (course, role, service commitment, team, apprenticeship, gap placement) traces specifically to particular prior engagements — not to a generic statement of values.
- When asked about purpose, the student points to specific prior engagements (named D2R projects, named initiatives, specific people they worked with, specific problems they kept returning to) rather than to abstracted articulation, and names what that engagement taught them that is now showing up in the choice.
- The teacher or mentor can trace — from records, not only from the student's narration — how the student's engagement over Bands D and E concentrated on particular communities or problems, and the Band F choices are on the same line, not a switch.
- When the student's post-school choice narrows or shifts, the student narrates the change as a revision based on what was learned in specific engagements, not as a reinvention of self, and the change is legible in the record.
Confusable behaviours
- Articulate, well-rehearsed purpose statements delivered in Reflection 360 or capstone presentations that are not traceable to specific prior engagement — the language is coherent but the line back to what the student actually did is missing. Distinction: Band F requires the engagement history + choices, not articulation alone.
- A single capstone project or final-year commitment offered as evidence of purpose without the preceding two-year pattern. Distinction: Band F is longitudinal; single-occasion articulation cannot substitute for the traceable history.
- Purpose framed entirely in terms of what the student stands for in abstract (values language) with no concrete engagement-to-choice line. Distinction: mature purpose at Band F shows up as choices whose origins are legible in engagement, not as identity claims.
Absence indicators
- The student's post-school choice is not traceable to their engagement history — the records show one set of sustained commitments and the choice points elsewhere, without an explicit revision narrative.
- In Reflection 360, the student produces values language and aspirational articulation but cannot point to specific prior engagements that the choice builds on, even when prompted to do so.
- The teacher or mentor cannot, without the student's narration, see the line between what the student did over two years and what they are choosing next — the choice reads as unconnected to the record.
Conversation prompts
- Walk me through how your choice for next year traces back to specific things you did here — name particular projects, particular people, particular moments, not values words.
- If I look at your engagement record from Bands D and E, what should I expect your post-school choice to be about? Does the choice you're making line up with that, or is it a turn — and if it's a turn, what made it turn?
- What is the engagement you kept coming back to even when it wasn't assigned? How is that showing up in what you're choosing to do next?