Online Application

EPIC Application Form and Acceptance Policy

This is the first step to apply for your child’s place at EPIC. The second step is to apply to join the Heartwood Learning Community on the HLC website, and choose EPIC Victoria. Enrollment opens in spring for Heartwood for the following year. At present, there is no application fee but there is a $35 non refundable registration fee to be paid once a space has been offered to your child. Paying this registration fee shows intent and is considered an acceptance for the placement. Families will be contacted by EPIC when a space becomes available for their child, based on the following priorities:

Families who registered the previous year with EPIC
Families with a sibling registered in EPIC
Families employed by EPIC, e.g. Mentor’s child
All other families who have expressed interest will be asked to complete a questionnaire (see below) to assess the best fit to the existing cohort and to ensure EPIC can meet the child’s needs.

Please note: The waitlist is not first come first serve. As much as we would like to welcome everyone to EPIC, we need to be mindful to create a balance in terms of age, gender, etc within each cohort and within the program in general.

When you are offered a spot via email, you have 48 hours to respond. After that time, the space may be made available to another family/child.

Questionnaire for Prospective Families 2024/2025

Thank you for your interest in EPIC! We are excited to build community with you.

To help ensure available spots are offered to those who are a suitable fit to EPIC’s existing cohort and EPIC’s ability to meet your child’s needs, we request all families complete the following questions. Upon completion of this questionnaire, we will happily consider your family as having applied for an available opening.

Family Information

Parent/Guardian Name(s)(Required)

Email(Required)

Phone(Required)

Learner's Name(Required)

Age(Required)

Date of Birth(Required)

Pronouns

Grade 2024/2025(Required)

Languages Spoken at Home

Cultural Identity (optional)

Application Questions

1. What has led you to EPIC?

2. What lights up your child?

3. Are you familiar with the attachment-based philosophies and heart-centred approaches to promote connection and relationship as a core value within community? How do you feel this approach will complement (or clash) with your current parenting style and philosophies?

4. What information would be important for our Learning Team to understand about your child’s ability to navigate challenges or handle emotions like frustration, anger, sadness or alarm?

5. What previous educational experiences has your child participated in? Please share some of the positives and/or negatives of that model for your child and family.

6. What has your family's and your child's experience in connection with nature looked like so far? What is your child's threshold for challenging weather?

7. Does your child require extra support in group settings? Has your child received a learning needs assessment or has one in progress or is awaiting results? Despite advocacy efforts, we don’t currently receive on-site support from the school district for children with designations and our current pay structure does not allow us to hire extra support, like EAs. We welcome supports you are able to provide. Please let us know what supports your child could require and current strategies or plans for meeting those and how they might look in partnership with us. We want to work together to see if EPIC is the best fit for your child.

8. EPIC is a parent/guardian supported organization. Families support EPIC by volunteering onsite (we welcome family involvement), by signing up for a volunteer role to hold for the school year, by offering workshops, by attending parent meetings, by supporting and promoting our fundraisers, and in additional ways. Please describe the time and/or skills your family can contribute? What gets you excited about a community created learning environment?

9. EPIC operates on a very small budget – if a family withdraws – we could lose the ability to pay our mentors. We understand that complete certainty is not possible, but are you planning to commit to the whole school year at EPIC?

EPIC Learning Community