Benefits of a K-8 School

In our current world – with all its challenges and the incredibly rapid rate of change – Speyer offers students a rich, educational environment where they have the ability to learn in a self-directed way, to pursue an interest or read deeply, and to solve problems with tenacity, collaboration, and creativity. 

And yet in our fast-paced world, Speyer, as a K-8 school, offers a further gift: the space for children to remain children while they grow towards adulthood. 

Intentional Focus — Both Academically and Socially

The intentionality of Speyer's K–8 model allows us to focus exclusively on the educational needs of Lower and Middle School students within and across grade levels and to provide the optimal learning environment for gifted learners. The absence of high school students driving the curriculum and feeding the desire to grow up faster than our students might be ready for (or we might be comfortable with) allows us as educators to solely concentrate on the educational and social emotional needs of Speyer students where they are – not where they wish they were or think they ought to be. 

Our K-8 model – without the distraction of students in higher grades – allows us to directly focus and support our Lower and Middle School gifted students. The impact of guiding adults, supportive peer groups, and a caring community in these formative years can not be over emphasized. 

The Foundation of Leadership and Essential Life Skills 

When students enter our Middle School as fifth graders, they are still children. But when they graduate from Speyer, they are young adults. The growth of a child from Fifth to Eighth Grade is when the most change happens: they use deeper levels of abstract thinking, pursuing knowledge with greater sophistication, their sense of agency dawns, and they become keenly aware of peers. It is a pivotal time for students, when habits are established that can set them up for success in High School and beyond. 

The Middle School years are defined by adolescence. The term “adolescence” comes directly from the Latin verb “adolesco” meaning “to grow into adulthood” or “to become mature.” The job as Speyer's Middle School educators is to guide young people through the tumultuous years of adolescence and into maturity – and our job is made easier by the fact that Speyer is a K-8 school. 

Our students in Seventh and Eighth Grade are challenged to be leaders in the community. They speak at assemblies, mentor younger students, manage the student portfolio in our Financial Literacy program, lead Student Council, and represent the school as Speyer Ambassadors in public events such as Admissions tours. Our oldest students have a myriad of opportunities to practice their leadership skills, to contribute to the community in meaningful ways, and practice the adult skills of independence and collaboration.

The Opportunity to Select the Right High School at the Right Time 

What a student is like when they begin their educational journey at five years old is different from what they are like at age 13 – and they should be different. Students grow and change and evolve in the nine years from Kindergarten to Eighth Grade. By the time they are ready to leave Speyer, a student's strengths, passions, and interests have blossomed and clearly emerged. Our eighth graders have the opportunity to choose the right High School at the right time for who they are at 13, not who they were when they were little. Not only do Speyer graduates attend the top high school and boarding schools from across the country, they thrive there because they are at the best high school for who they are when they enter in Ninth Grade.