News at Renbrook School | Top Private Schools for Academic Success

kindergarten student and teacher using tools in STEM class

Scientific Thinking from the Beginning

March 31, 2023

In the Beginning School, children are naturalists. Our 75-acre campus beckons them to explore the outdoors and the creatures, plants, and rocks they find there. They are taught to stop, pause, and look more closely. Our youngest students are not bound by a curriculum; they follow their own discoveries and observations. Their teachers build on the children’s own curiosity to lead them into the process of formal inquiry.

chess students and teacher with their trophies

Renbrook Chess Team Wins Fifth at State Championships

March 29, 2023

The Renbrook Chess Team has been hard at work this year, refining their skills, and it has clearly paid off.

Eighth-grader Savanna Singh featured on We-Ha.com

March 21, 2023

An eighth-grader at West Hartford’s Renbrook School is holding a jersey drive to benefit children in developing countries and also to help keep textiles out of landfills.

How Do Scientists Think?

March 21, 2023

For the next several weeks, follow us as we explore the notion of scientific thinking. What do we really mean by scientific thinking, and how does it inform our teaching and learning at Renbrook School?

Building towards Benchmarks in a Play-Based Curriculum: Math

February 21, 2023

Building number sense allows children to think flexibly and fluently about numbers and allows them to generalize numbers across contexts. Developing strong number sense in the younger years is necessary to compute and solve more complex problems in older grades. Helping each child to believe they are a mathematician and develop a love for math begins with children building an understanding of numbers.

Executive Functioning – Part 2

February 14, 2023

As a follow-up to last week’s blog, let’s look at how Renbrook Lower School teachers help students further develop executive functioning skills and ideas for parents in the home.

Renbrook School MATHCOUNTS Team Shines!

February 9, 2023

Twelve Renbrook students in grades six through eight participated in the Hartford Chapter MATHCOUNTS competition on Saturday, February 4, 2023. There were 17 teams and 131 individuals from area public and private schools who competed in the event.

Executive Functioning

February 7, 2023

I came across a title of a paper from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child that caught my attention. It read, Building the Brain’s Air Traffic Control System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function. Intrigued by the phrase “the brain’s air traffic control system,” I began reading.

Happy Birthday MLK

January 16, 2023

At Renbrook, we believe a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment serves our students’ needs of belonging so they can pursue academic excellence, experience community, and lead with courage and empathy. Throughout the school year, those core beliefs inform our curriculum and programming. Additionally, when significant events such as the MLK Jr. federal holiday occur, we thoughtfully curate learning experiences that are relevant and age-appropriate. This important work is accomplished because of positive and constructive mindsets, belief in the impact of unity, and an understanding of the experiences of others.

illustration of students sitting on stacks of books

Reading Comprehension

January 10, 2023

As adults, we tend to overlook the complexity of the ability to make meaning from something we read because we have been doing it for a long time and because it happens automatically and instantaneously for so many of us. For children, though, especially during the elementary school years, there is so much involved in processing print.

Think Outside the Box

December 22, 2022

Recently, several teachers assigned a “Think Outside the Box Thursday” exercise for their students upon arrival to the classroom. When I dropped into the classrooms, hearing what each student created out of two simple lines on a blank piece of paper confirmed that our teachers continue to provide unique ways for our students to develop further problem-solving and creativity skills. Those skills have been identified as having a significant impact on college achievement and future work success.

We are all beautifully different illustration of thumb prints

How Are We Beautifully Different?

December 12, 2022

What a treat it is to share the culmination of our first units in Preschool through Kindergarten with our readers. Each grade’s unit strove to answer the essential question, “How are we beautifully different?” This question stems from Renbrook’s Diversity and Belonging Vision Statement “Beautifully different, stronger together, united in purpose for the public good.” At the Beginning School, we are laying the foundation for our students to feel “stronger together and to be united in purpose for the public good” by first supporting them to develop a strong sense of self and embrace others.

Dr. Kelly Bird presents at Independent School Management Conference

December 2, 2022

Five Ways to Make Your School Makerspace a Thriving Space of Belonging

Dr. Kelly Bird, Director of Renbrook Beginning School, joined Margaret Powers, founder of Creative Thinking Partners LLC, and ISM Consultant Joshua Nelson, as presenters in a webinar on makerspaces for Independent School Management this week.

Makerspaces are dedicated areas where students use hands-on techniques and tools to design, experiment, build, and invent. These spaces foster learning through inquiry and help develop students’ real-life, critical-thinking skills. But teachers often find it challenging to use their school’s makerspaces effectively and equitably. Dr. Bird and her colleagues discussed the value of makerspaces and how to ensure these specialized areas support student belonging and fruitful learning.

Key Points included:

Scheduling tips to promote collaboration and ways to create connections across subjects for interdisciplinary projects.
The benefits of designating a makerspace coordinator in each school division.
The importance of creating a scope and sequence for specific skills students can choose from.
The impact of the environment’s physical design on student interest and sense of belonging.
Concrete steps to build a shared commitment to learning through “making.”

Dr. Bird received her Doctorate in School Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Her dissertation, MAKING Space: Teacher Perceptions of How

Participation and Choice are Mediated in Maker Education in Independent Schools has informed her important work here at Renbrook School and beyond.

Making: An Iterative Process Presents Opportunities for Learning

November 22, 2022

“What was a challenge you had today, and how did you solve it?”

This is how we end our STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) classes in kindergarten. The students circle up, and a few friends volunteer to share what problem they encountered and how they went about solving it. By helping students to see the opportunities for learning that come with mistakes or failures, we are affirming one of our guidelines for STEAM class, “Enjoy the process!”

Renbrook School Woodworking teacher and students on a magazine cover

Renbrook School Featured in West Hartford Lifestyle Magazine

November 7, 2022

Renbrook School was recently featured in the November edition of West Hartford Lifestyle Magazine and Glastonbury Lifestyle Magazine. Head of School Matt Sigrist talks about our mission and the Renbrook difference. Our own Katie Jackson graces the cover with her woodworking students. Enjoy the full article here.

Did the Pandemic Interrupt Your Child’s Social, Speech, and Motor Development?

November 7, 2022

We recently had the pleasure of hearing from a panel of therapists with whom we work closely to support the language and social and emotional development of our students here at Renbrook. We partner with these professionals to develop a child’s toolbox of strategies for success and to educate our teachers to incorporate these strategies into the classroom. We know that children thrive when we function as a team.

Why I Teach by Nancy Reynolds

October 31, 2022

I always felt lucky, that at an early age I knew what I wanted to be when I “grew up.” I was extremely shy in elementary school, I remember clinging to my mother’s legs and running after her back then, as if it was the end of the world. But low and behold, I felt the caring of teachers around me, who were kind and attentive, and made me see school as a happy place – a place that felt safe and comfortable, almost like home.

Maggie Doyne speaking at Renbrook School

Maggie Doyne, Author and Philanthropist Visits Renbrook School

October 26, 2022

Last week, Renbrook welcomed humanitarian and author, Maggie Doyne. Maggie is the founder and CEO of the BlinkNow Foundation that funds a children’s home, health clinic, women’s center, and K-12 school in Surkhet, Nepal. Maggie met with our Lower and Upper School students for a spirited and inspiring conversation about her life’s work. She also joined us for an evening parent event to discuss her new book, Between the Mountain and the Sky: A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss, Healing, and Hope.

Sleep

October 24, 2022

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine note, “Elementary school-age children who get less than nine hours of sleep per night have significant differences in certain brain regions responsible for memory, intelligence, and well-being compared to those who get the recommended nine to 12 hours of sleep per night.” There were over 8,300 children who participated in their study. The researchers used MRIs, medical records, and surveys over a two-year period. They were particularly concerned to see that children who slept, on average, less than nine hours a night not only had less gray matter than their peers who slept nine or more hours but that the volume of gray matter remained low at the two years mark. Essentially, gray matter should increase during the elementary years until it peaks around 13 years of age.

Friend Wanted

October 17, 2022

At Lower School Assembly, third-grade students recently shared excerpts from their “Friend Wanted” ads, a beginning of the school year writing activity. I enjoyed reading through all the ads and learning more about what each student desires in a friend. Some of my favorite excerpts are:

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