Welcome to
The Hummingbird Learning Lab
Welcome to the Hummingbird Learning Lab — a unique place of learning that launched in September 2025.
We are the world’s first neuroscience-grounded learning environment with a focus on understanding nature and human nature. A place where young people make original discoveries, become entrepreneurs, and develop a profound understanding of themselves. Our students earn recognised qualifications and have the opportunity to study at Master’s level.
Join us on a journey of discovery and creativity, giving young people the agency they need to evolve throughout life.
Dave Strudwick
Headteacher and Co-Founder
Our Why - with Beau Lotto
In the following video, the Hummingbird’s Co-Founder and leading neuroscientist, Beau Lotto, shares how we are designing an education that enables young people to thrive.
Beau is also the Director of the Beautiful Mind Learning Lab and the Lab of Misfits.
Our Ethos
Agency: Students take responsibility for their learning through awareness, attitude, action, and accountability.
Integrated Learning: Curriculum connects subjects, skills, real-world contexts, and wellbeing.
Wellbeing & Neuroscience: Emotional, social, and cognitive development are central.
Way of Being: Education develops character and capacities for lifelong learning.
Our Aims
Empower students to develop self-understanding, interpersonal skills, and ecological awareness.
Foster a community that values curiosity, kindness, critical thinking, and creativity.
Provide hands-on, project-based experiences that connect learning to life.
Recognise and celebrate each learner’s progress through portfolio-based assessment.
Prepare students to thrive in an unpredictable future with resilience and imagination.
Our mission is to empower
young people with agency in their own evolution throughout life
Our Guiding Principle
To realise our mission, we are guided by a single principle: agency thrives through understanding nature and human nature.
We do this by creating a learning lab ecology, inspired by the following ideas. We are:
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Inquiry-focused, learning and discovering best in the real world.
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Exercising the 5C’s — being caring, curious, courageous, calm (in uncertainty), and committed.
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Fostering agency through the alignment of awareness, attitude, action, and accountability.
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Empowering wellbeing and learning through perceptual neuroscience.
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Encouraging experimentation — having a go, iterating, and striving for beauty and excellence.
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Living with integrity and kindness to have a positive impact on ourselves, others, and the world.
Our Approach
We foster an integrated learning experience that transcends traditional subject teaching. Through inquiry and project-based learning, individuals are guided to trust nature as an educator and to develop new ways of being and understanding within the ever-evolving tapestry of life and the universe.
We are connected to nature, and nature is connected to us. Nature is a complex adaptive system of which we are a part, and systems thinking flows from this understanding.
Learning is empowered by community and real-world authenticity. This means we don’t just learn about life — we learn to live life by being the scientist, artist, entrepreneur, and chef. Our approach builds agency and real-world understanding — from managing bank accounts to nurturing relationships.
How you learn is as important as what you learn.
Our Project and Inquiry Sequence where we explore, plan, do discover and share in a spiral learning process.
Our Courses
bringing agency to learning and life
The Hummingbird's accredited, holistic programmes are designed for young people from Year 7 onwards.
Our secondary and sixth form courses enable students to gain Crossfields Institute qualifications which are Ofqual accredited.
Please visit our curriculum page for more information about each of our courses and how you can enrol.
8-11 & 11-14 Programme
Y4 to Y6 & Y7 to Y9
FROM SEPT 2025
Level 3 Integrative Education Extended Diploma
Sixth Form: Y 12+
FROM SEPT 2026
Level 2 Extended Diploma
Y10 & Y11
FROM SEPT 2026
Level 7 Perceptual Neuroscience
Post-18
FROM SEPT 2027
Watch Our Introductory Film
The Hummingbird team has created a short overview of our why, what, and how. You’re warmly invited to watch the film as a starting point to discover more about the Hummingbird Learning Lab.