Academics
At Speyer, our students and their teachers are curious, energetic, and wonderfully driven — not just to know facts, but to understand and to question. The most common question heard on the Boulevard — asked by both our students to our teachers and vice versa — is “Why?”.
Students come to Speyer with myriad talents, at times performing at intellectual levels unexpected for their age, and our fearless faculty’s goal is to nourish their love of learning. At the same time, we believe that the best environment for gifted learners is one that nurtures both their academic and emotional development.
In each academic discipline, there is innovation and differentiation, encouraging students to develop critical and analytical thinking skills to their own individual highest level. In every Speyer classroom, teachers model and cultivate within our students traits such as collaboration, confidence, flexibility, resilience, humor, and appropriate risk-taking — personal skills and work habits associated with lifelong achievement and personal fulfillment. Yet, all while, we encourage our children to be children.
Integrating the pursuit of knowledge and integrity into a deep emphasis on interdisciplinary studies and cross-curricular, project-based learning, Speyer’s academic pedagogy combines the rigor of an intense, accelerated curriculum with the joy of energetic inquiry.
OUR Lower School Curriculum: BUILDING Foundations of Learning and community
From a young age, Speyer students are nurtured to become citizens of the world through the lens of historical inquiry. It is only from knowing where we’ve been that we can dream about the possibilities ahead as a global community.
The Lower School academic program is steeped in the study of humanities while focusing on the foundations that balance in-depth literacy skills and rigorous instruction in mathematics. Additionally, all Lower School students engage in debate and chess as core areas of study, along with science, physical education, art, music, and Spanish.
Learning at Speyer is interdisciplinary in the truest sense, holistically integrating art, culture, history, science, and everyday life. Students explore relationships across subjects and develop an understanding of the contextual influences on each of the disciplines.
Each Lower School grade (Kindergarten through Fourth Grade) consists of two classes, each having 13-22 students, led by two experienced and dynamic co-head teachers. The two-teacher model not only supports Speyer’s unique differentiated curriculum, it also allows the students to see the importance of vital social and emotional skills such as collaboration, compromise, and listening.
With a curriculum built around in-depth and long-term project work, Speyer students are able to showcase their learning through presentations to the greater Speyer community called “culminating events,” termed as such since they are the culmination of weeks of study. These events may take the artistic form of plays, films, science demonstrations, art displays, singing, or dancing — or a combination thereof. As often as possible, Speyer students "live" the curriculum by immersing themselves in it through as many cross-curricular pathways as possible.
OUR Middle School Curriculum: cultivating character of heart and mind
Middle School is a time in a student's education in which critical learning skills are imparted that often set the tone for their future — both extraordinary academic skills and those non-academic skills that are essential for them to possess as they leave Speyer and head into the world.
Moving from the Lower School two-teacher homeroom model, Middle School students attend specialized classes taught by expert instructors in humanities, mathematics, science, debate, and Spanish. In addition to these core courses, there are also a host of specialty classes including physical education, music, creative and computational thinking, and art.
A main component of the Middle School curriculum is our Elective Program. Students are encouraged to explore interests and passions through a variety of electives, including robotics, social justice, rock band, film studies, literary magazine, ethics, game theory, and more (for more details on the unique Elective Program, click here).
In tandem with challenging our students with our differentiated and accelerated academic offerings, Speyer’s Middle School curriculum is focused on helping them cultivate a strong sense of self. Through a comprehensive advisory program tailored to gifted learners, our students are supported as they learn to know themselves and, more importantly, to be comfortable being themselves. We provide the space for them to explore how will they interact with and impact others and with the world — as it is currently and decades from now. Elements of character such as tenacity, collaboration, empathy, and advocacy are examples of traits we help our students develop in order to be good humans after they leave Speyer.
It is often said that if a Speyer graduate can perform calculus, do in-depth literary analysis, and additionally has persistence, creativity, and collaboration skills, we have failed them if they aren't kind.