Breaking the Private School Mold
On its 17-acre campus, Shore is not-so-quietly breaking the mold for Pre-K through Grade 9 education. And on “First Fridays” throughout the fall and winter, families considering private school are invited to visit and see how this North Shore institution, founded in 1936, is creating an inspiring new model for independent learning in the region.
“Take First Fridays,” urges Co-Director of Admissions Lee Carey. These unconventional drop-in open houses on the first Friday of every month “are all about unscripted moments,” Carey says. “That’s very different from a traditional planned tour or the orchestrated events of an open house.”
First Fridays begin under the red roof of the school’s Center for Creativity at 8:15 a.m., when guests can start their visit by experiencing the school’s community-wide “house” meetings. During these festive weekly occasions, students, faculty, and staff gather in “Hogwarts”-like house groups to bond while enjoying good-natured competition.
Afterwards, Shore’s campus is open for impromptu tours to every grade level; classrooms, too, are wide open, and visitors are paired with current parents to show the way and share perspectives. Co-Director of Admissions Daphne Faldi admits, “We know that families respond to school ‘cultures’ on a visceral, emotional level. That kind of insight is just as important in evaluating options for our children as facts and figures. And so we created First Fridays to give families the unique opportunity to really dive into areas of the curriculum or the facilities that have particular resonance for them.”
Afterwards, Shore’s campus is open for impromptu tours to every grade level; classrooms, too, are wide open, and visitors are paired with current parents to show the way and share perspectives. Co-Director of Admissions Daphne Faldi admits, “We know that families respond to school ‘cultures’ on a visceral, emotional level. That kind of insight is just as important in evaluating options for our children as facts and figures. And so we created First Fridays to give families the unique opportunity to really dive into areas of the curriculum or the facilities that have particular resonance for them.”
One area that’s certainly resonating both on campus and off is the red-roofed Center for Creativity, a $20 million, 30,000-square-foot facility completed in 2012 that puts the arts, engineering, and innovation at the center of the Shore education.
Named after Larry Griffin, Shore’s long-time Head of School and the driving force behind its planning and construction, the Center houses a state-of-the-art 375-seat Theatre that rivals many professional facilities; two light-filled studio spaces fully equipped for a range of visual and ceramic arts; music rooms outfitted with traditional and electronic instruments; a digital audio production studio; private music practice rooms; a soaring central gathering space and gallery; and the extraordinary Innovation Lab, a dedicated “makerspace” where students from every grade explore subject areas as diverse as science, history, and music through hands-on work with professional equipment and materials ranging from wood to circuit boards.
“Creative education takes creative space,” asserts Griffin, “and that’s just what we’ve built here: a place where the entire Shore community can explore new inspiration and ideas that cross all academic boundaries. It’s what this school is all about—and it’s the reason administrators from institutions all across the region are coming to see how we did it.”
“I was stunned by the facilities,” says new Lower School Head Sara Knox, who came to Shore over the summer from a San Diego independent school. “If I had to pick one thing that brought me here from California, it has to be Shore’s incredible commitment to innovation and creativity.” Knox says the Center brings typically unmeasured aspects of student development—such as teamwork, resilience, and curiosity—to the fore in every aspect of the curriculum.
Those character skills, says Assistant Head of School and Upper School Head Ben Kennedy, are core to Shore’s approach. States Kennedy, “We are one of only a handful of Massachusetts independent schools to implement the Mission Skills Assessment, a research-based suite of tools to measure how our curriculum instills in learners specific critical abilities–such as creativity, ethics, and time management–that have been proven to correlate with real life success.”
Emphasis on those character skills was also the impetus for Shore’s latest innovation: the installation this summer of hand-crafted Harkness discussion tables in eight classrooms serving five grades.
The Harkness table design and teaching methodology were created at Phillips Exeter Academy in the 1930s, when philanthropist Edward Harkness challenged the Exeter faculty to create an innovative way of teaching that would include every child in the classroom learning experience. The result was an oval wood table that ensured that every student could be seen and every voice heard.
“Shore faculty members have for years incorporated the Harkness methodology into our own style of student-centered, discussion-based teaching, which begins as early as fourth and fifth grades,” says Assistant Head of School Ben Kennedy. That’s much earlier than at most other institutions.
“The introduction of these eight new tables in our science, history, and English classrooms,” Kennedy continues, “will dramatically enhance Shore’s leadership in a method of learning that puts children at the center of their own education and prepares them to excel in secondary school. Just as laptops and SmartBoards are tools that facilitate learning, so too is the distinctive oval Harkness table a transformational piece of technology.”
Families are invited to discover this and many other innovations at Shore’s First Friday visits, 8:15-10:00 a.m., beginning October 2 and continuing on November 6, December 4, January 8, February 5, and beyond. Shore’s traditional middle school open house is scheduled for November 18, and an all-grades open house for January 24.
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Students focus on creative engineering in the iLab.
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First Friday drop-in tours begin under the red roof of the Center for Creativity.
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Shore's 375-seat Theatre enables professional-quality productions.
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Elementary students explore an integrated science and art curriculum in the Center's studios.
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Middle school students collaborate around a Harkness table in the science lab.
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Shore Country Day School’s mission is to provide an education that inspires a love of learning and encourages children to embrace academic challenge. We seek to build character, cultivate creativity, and value diversity as we help our children become healthy, compassionate citizens of the world.
The School admits qualified students of any race, color, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, sex, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law, and extends to them all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School. The School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, sex, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law in the administration of its admissions, scholarships, and loans, and its educational, athletic, and other programs.