Standards-based academics specifically designed to develop the skills that intellectually-gifted students need for 21st century success

Our academic programs are designed with one goal in mind: to give kids who have meaningfully unique ways of seeing things the skills they’ll need to turn those perspectives into thought-leadership. Going through life with the unique duality our children face of extremely high analytical reasoning skills coupled with an area of learning, social-emotional or physio challenge naturally leads you to make different connections and bring different perspectives than others around you. As a kid, this often leads to the feeling that you “just don’t fit in”—but as grown ups, we call this “innovation.”

The fact of seeing things differently is a gift in and of itself, so rather than teaching kids to “conform,” our academic programming is designed to give our students the design process, executive function, collaboration and critical thinking skills they’ll need to design their own course to develop those ideas, whether they lead to writing a new screen play or furthering the field of mollecular biology. These are the skills that determine success in a post-Google world—not the ability to absorb facts and figures that you can easily look up online.

To achieve this, we have adapted the project-based learning framework to meet the needs of twice exceptional students by integrating academic curriculum standards with physio, executive function and social-emotional goals, and supported through our exclusive, movement-based pedagogy and data-driven differentiation.

Here is an overview of how those pieces come together:

Students collaborate with one another to solve real world problems through in-depth project-based learning that places the emphasis on critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving while developing the executive function and social collaboration skills that are essential for 21st century success.

Our students have made a short film urging regulatory change to save the declining horseshoe crab population in the Long Island Sound; they’ve created 3-dimensional, scaled architectural models of imagined democratic communities in the midst of feudal, 13th century Europe; they’ve written proposals for new superhero characters for Marvel Comics; and they’re designing an app to spark a revolution for climate change.

Each project integrates curriculum aligned to Connecticut state requirements across math, science, engineering, literature, writing, fine arts, providing purposeful learning that prepares students for rigorous college curricula and professional careers. Executive function, social skills and growth mindset coaching and support are integrated into each project and into the classroom itself, giving students the tools they need to experience their strengths.

Music, art and drama are woven into our academic program, bringing depth and opportunities to explore different types of self-expression into our academic work. Within our deep-dive project-based learning, students are empowered to decide how they would like to manifest their learning, from creating a documentary to developing a professional-looking powerpoint presentation for a local elected official. Learning themes are brought into our twice weekly visual art classes, both remotely and in-person, and students participate in twice-weekly music classes run by our partners at Connecticut Music Therapy. This fall, we will be adding a drama program, helping our kids to connect socially and develop as readers and authors through virtual theater productions, brought to life with their own costumes and sets, right from home.