Bridging the Journey from K to 8

To ensure our students’ journeys are both smooth and continuous, the 2015 Strategic Plan promised to cultivate new initiatives that would ensure a seamless connection between the Lower School and Upper School experience. The goal was to designate areas where bridges could be strengthened to improve the academic, social, emotional, and physical transitions that our students experience. Many of these bridges have stemmed from the following school-wide initiatives:

REINFORCING BONDS: Academic Council 2.0

To play a more proactive and holistic role in evaluating the K to 8 experience at Peck, the Academic Council has re-emerged as a “bridging” force. The council brings faculty together across the entire K-8 spectrum to provide a school-wide voice in conversations, presentations, committee work, and changes that improve curriculum and connections across the school.

The council has worked to rene our approach to Harkness instruction, evaluate report cards and comments from a whole-school perspective, roll out essential questions across all grades, examine homework requirements across the school, evaluate whole-school approaches to project-based and student-centered learning, and evaluate numerous other school-wide and grade-level initiatives. The council has become an ever more dynamic and bonding presence for The Peck School.

Peck's "Reach Across" program pairs students in different grades for fun community-building activities.

CREATING LENSES FOR LEARNING: Essential Questions

Each grade level has been given one overarching essential question to guide them as they encounter increasingly complex ideas over the course of the year. As the students move up in grade levels, the questions become increasingly challenging— while also providing a familiar touchstone from year to year that guides them in their exploration of subject matter.

The questions range from “How do we learn?” in the kindergarten to “How does one make a difference in the community?” in the eighth grade. Though these questions primarily drive inquiry in the humanities and Peck’s character development program (InDeCoRe), faculty members in other disciplines may also use them as guideposts to learning.

Opportunities to build friendships across grade levels are woven throughout the Peck experience, leading to an emphasis on positive role models, community values, and lifelong memories.

BUILDING STRONGER SCAFFOLDS: Bridging Departments and Chairs

Today, faculty are more dynamically connected and collaborative across the whole school—and that connectivity translates to a more seamless student experience. With a strong cohort of science, math, technology, and reading specialists in the Lower School, Peck can emphasize a strategic blend of Lower School and Upper School pedagogies and teaching methods, and build better scaffolds for learning across the K-8 experience.

Peck’s emphasis on subject-area collaboration and communication supports the growth of initiatives such as guided math, guided reading, Harkness methodologies, student-centered learning, and social-emotional learning. As Peck continues to build the stature and responsibility of department chairs as key vehicles for moving the school forward, the role of chair has expanded to include representation from the Lower School. This expands the opportunity for department heads to consider curricula through the lens of a continuum, rather than grade-by-grade or division-by-division.

TAKING OWNERSHIP OF LEARNING: Agency by Design

One of the best tools we can provide students as they transition from grade to grade is a sense of agency—a sense that they are empowered and responsible for their own learning. To nurture this state of mind, Peck adopted the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Agency by Design (AbD) Framework in 2017 to roll out across all grade levels and subject areas over the coming few years.

In essence, AbD becomes a common language spoken across all grades by students and teachers alike.The AbD framework encourages collaboration and community, and helps students visualize connections and patterns. It speaks to young people’s innate curiosity about the world around them. With a common framework for curiosity and exploration, and a shared responsibility for taking ownership of the learning process, students journey through the K to 8 continuum with a sense of shared purpose and understanding.

EASING THE TRANSITION: From Fourth to Fifth Grade

For some students, the jump from fourth to fth grade at Peck can be daunting. As Upper School students, they will now travel between classrooms for various subjects; they will have separate teachers with unique teaching styles for each discipline, and they will go from being the oldest students in the corridor to the youngest. While Peck has several traditions designed to ease the transition, new initiatives are in place to make this journey even smoother.

Peck's decades-old Downy-Redhead tradition bonds students and families through school spirit and friendly rivalry.

Over the past few years, fourth graders have been invited to experience the Upper School environment in myriad ways throughout their nal year as a Lower Schooler. They are invited to attend select Upper School assemblies, and they attend joint question-and-answer sessions with the fth grade.

There is now a spot on the Upper School Student Council for a fourth-grade ambassador. And, this spring, fourth graders will participate in the voting process for the election of student council representatives who will assume leadership positions when the fourth graders rise to the Upper School in the following school year.

INVESTING IN INFRASTRUCTURE: The Peck Promise Campaign

Though perhaps not as obvious as programmatic changes at Peck, the recent campus modications do a tremendous amount to bridge connections between the Upper and Lower School. The expansive Parents Association Quad in front of Lindenwold, the new sports court, and the new playground draw students of all ages together for play and recreation. New benches and campus landscaping offer a variety of outdoor spaces for schoolwork, reading, and reection. A purposeful campus master plan, now realized, facilitates daily academic and playful encounters between classmates from across the school.

SMOOTHING THE ROAD: Facilitating Timely Transformation

Whether we are building bridges within subject areas, between subject areas, across the Lower and Upper School, or between age groups at Peck, better bridges make for smoother transitions. In a school dedicated to Timeless Traditions and Timely Transformation, our ability to locate and eliminate gaps in the road means the journey from kindergarten to eighth grade at Peck is the best it can be.

Peck's new K-8 Sports Court is a popular place for students of all ages to play together!