Our school’s academic program is designed to inspire lifelong learning. By focusing on problem-solving skills, resilience, and intellectual flexibility in early childhood, personalized learning with dynamic, flexible groupings in lower school, and deep thinking and manageable challenges in middle school, we equip our students with the tools to succeed in an ever-changing world.
Chilton House
Our early learning division, Chilton House, is helping children build the tools of learning, including problem-solving skills and resilience, intellectual flexibility, and the ability to listen to the perspectives of others while formulating their understanding of the world.
“We are teaching children to be intellectually flexible, resilient problem solvers,” says Head of Early Learning Lauren Mactas. “We are challenging children to figure out something they don’t know the answer to versus what is two plus two.”
For instance, ask a child, “Where does rain come from?” They might say from the sky. “Our teachers would inquire about how the water got in the sky. We want them to wonder with limitless possibilities,” says Mactas. “To me, that’s what makes our division challenging. We are giving children opportunities to do hard things, to figure out answers, consider all possibilities, and find joy in doing something hard.”
Part of Chilton House’s Group Soup unit, inspired by Barbara Brenner’s book about a family of rabbits who make soup together, each contributing one ingredient to the pot, includes our 3-year-old and 4-year-old students thinking about where food comes from “because as far as children are concerned, food comes from your house or the grocery store or a restaurant, and the journey ends there,” says Mactas. The conversation continues in the classrooms with our teachers asking more probing questions. “The teachers could very easily give them that answer, and they would have the information, but they would have no exercise in wondering or hypothesizing.” To celebrate the end of the unit, students create a vegetable market, combining math, literacy, dramatic play, creative arts, and fine motor skills. The vegetables, signage, and materials are handcrafted by our students and used to create a playful setting where academic skills can be cultivated and practiced. Then, the students and families join together in the classrooms to enjoy soup as a community.
“Children use their brains in these new and innovative ways to come up with information that is more meaningful for them. So it sticks,” adds Mactas. “So they’re walking away from a learning experience, having taken a major role in that learning experience as opposed to just being given information.”
In Chilton House, the desire to be a problem solver and a good person permeates throughout the division, adds Mactas. “There is a shared sense of determination and wanting to wonder and problem solve together. That is one of the most magical things about being here. That’s not just on the part of the students; it is also on the part of the faculty. We will accomplish it together.”
3s/4s head teacher Carissa Garcia, who developed the Group Soup unit, says, “Group Soup offers a unique opportunity for students at this stage, challenging them to shift their focus from what they can accomplish individually to what they can contribute as members of a community. Tasks such as adding ‘their vegetable’ to the soup or designing a table runner that creates a sense of welcome and ease for the culminating community meal are practical ways in which our young students process these concepts and demonstrate their learning. This unit sets the foundation for understanding our broader community and illustrates how a willingness to work together can produce greater results.”
“If we can help children feel motivated to want to do things that are hard, then by the time they get to Little School, they want to take on new challenges.”
Little School
According to Associate Head of School and Director of the Arts Amelia Gold, personalized learning is one of the pillars of academic excellence in Little School, our lower division.
“For example, in all areas within one classroom, multiple flexible groupings are happening in real time. In first-grade literacy, seven different literacy groups are being assessed and shifted because we have kids at the beginning of their reading journey and kids who are multiple grades above grade level. We ask ourselves, how do we meet all our students’ needs,” says Gold.
Teachers work with the students daily and then meet with specialists and leadership team members, sharing data and regrouping as needed. “We are creating dynamic groupings so that wherever students are on their journey, we meet them there and propel them forward. Students are always in a place of acceleration,” adds Gold.
Lower School Learning Specialist Jennifer Dare says there are many benefits of small, flexible groupings. “Students have multiple opportunities to ask questions and express what they know about reading, spelling, and vocabulary and have a teacher to guide them to construct new meaning and understand new literacy concepts,” she says, adding that students receive immediate and individualized feedback and guidance about their learning, which helps facilitate gains in progress and independence.
Dare also believes the groups foster confidence in children and teach them about the collaborative process. “I see children listening to one another, trying out each other’s strategies, and providing positive feedback and encouragement during tricky moments. These are essential skills for when they reach our middle school,” she says.
In Little School, the faculty is always looking for pathways to help students who are on the cusp of reaching the next level, whether that’s giving a student a little extra work or a more sophisticated spelling list. “We’re always looking for those opportunities that give them the chance to operate at their highest levels,” says Gold.
One example of an opportunity for students to dive deeper into subjects and areas they are passionate about is our Continental Math League, which meets once a week during recess. “Witnessing our students’ enthusiasm for tackling challenging math problems is truly inspiring,” says Gold. “Having extra time during the school day to focus on a subject they are passionate about, like math, helps develop their critical thinking skills and continues to foster their love of learning.”
Gold emphasizes that educational excellence does not exist without exceptional, talented, and passionate teachers. “Teachers are the architects of our students’ futures,” says Gold. “During these formative years, they shape not only academic understanding but also character, instilling in them a love of learning that will last a lifetime.”
Morrow House
In our middle school, Morrow House, we challenge students to think deeply, says Head of Middle School and Director of Secondary School Placement Jed Silverstein, Ph.D., who has seen evidence of this when recent graduates, who are attending the most prestigious secondary schools in the country, tell him how prepared they feel and grateful they are for their EMS education.
“We understand that sometimes you can do more harm than good by giving kids challenges that are not appropriate to their current level of competence. Our teachers do an amazing job of intentionally creating manageable challenges.”
Assistant Head of Middle School Gerard Allen, who also teaches English, asks his students to write “synthetic essays.” He develops several prompts with the students, which ask them to reflect on questions about human nature and human society and allow them to explore these questions by drawing connections between multiple literary texts that they have read, including “12 Angry Men” and “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.”
“He is asking our students to read deeply. He’s making them critically think about how the thematic content in the seemingly unconnected literary text can be woven together to craft a response related to questions tied to justice, moral thinking, suffering, rhetoric, and leadership,” says Silverstein.
Our teachers are challenging our kids to grow beyond the developmental expectations of middle school. “Our teachers are thoughtful about differentiating and supporting kids where they are at and helping everybody get to a very high level of achievement,” says Silverstein. For example, when a recent chemistry test revealed that some students had not met their potential, Silverstein inquired with the teacher. She explained that she had made the test tough on purpose and would evaluate why some struggled, inquire about their study habits’ effectiveness, and then help them with strategies for next time.
“The main goal of a middle school educator is to help children develop an attitude towards difficulty with an understanding that the discomfort felt during hard times is the price of deep learning, and they need to embrace it,” says Silverstein.
He praises Poonkothai N-Ma, a Morrow House learning specialist, who challenges our students to solve real authentic mathematical problems. “She (N-Ma) is very thoughtful about situating the relevance of certain mathematical topics in the real world and challenging students to use math to solve real authentic problems,” says Silverstein. “I think that can be challenging because textbooks and worksheets do a good job constructing a rigid, solvable world, but the real world isn’t like that. So using math to solve open-ended problems is excellent preparation for a rigorous math curriculum.”
For instance, N-Ma recreated a grocery store for her fifth graders and shared a circular with them, asking them to complete a worksheet listing the products they wanted to buy, the percentage discounts, and the final total amount for their purchase, not exceeding $50 for their total purchase.
N-Ma also works with the fifth graders who need more of a challenge using the “power of peer learning,” where students are given higher-order thinking questions and work in pairs to solve them. Then, they evaluate their peers’ work and share their problem-solving steps.
“The magic of a Morrow House education is that we will meet the child where they’re at, but we will not rest until we move them much further along their intellectual journey than where we found them. And that’s something you’ll see in our classrooms,” says Silverstein.
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