Preschool to Grade 8 Model
As a Preschool - 8th grade school, we focus all of our time, effort and resources on early childhood, elementary and middle school students. We are proud of this unique educational experience.
It is our firm belief, and the research supports us, that a small, Preschool to grade 8 school offers students significant benefits, including:
- Students feel safer and show greater growth in academic achievement.
- Parents and teachers show greater satisfaction and partnership.
- Younger students benefit from the positive role models of the older students.
- Older students gain self-esteem by serving as mentors, role models and “protectors" as opposed to having to establish new reputations upon entering middle school.
- K - 8 students maintain a more serious academic purpose than they do if they transfer to a separate middle school setting. (Martin A. West, Harvard School of Education, 2012)
- The curriculum has greater synergy and unity across grade levels. Its developmental structure is created and implemented by the educators who teach our students.
- K - 8 schools provide a more personal, family atmosphere with natural groupings of school age children. Siblings and friends routinely connect across grades.
- Families experience a stronger sense of community and connect with faculty and classmates.
- Middle school students are given authentic ways of modeling behavior and are considered school leaders by the faculty, administrators and younger children.
In 2015 we began surveying the admissions offices at the high schools who have received the largest numbers of St. Anne’s graduates. The following response comes from one of the most selective high schools in Delaware, where an admissions officer reports that
"St. Anne's graduates are among our best-prepared, most successful, and -- especially -- most ready to support and advance good school culture."
That sort of feedback is a wonderful affirmation of the mission and program at St. Anne’s captured in our phrase "Open Hearts. Open Minds."