Today’s rapid technological and social change makes it increasingly difficult for us to understand and keep pace with the modern world. This has put schools under terrific pressure to reevaluate what should be taught in an age when no one can predict the skills that our children will need when they reach maturity. In the past, when our store of knowledge was relatively fixed and limited, the most efficient education consisted of lecture, drill, and memorization. In an era of technological revolution and social change, the foundation of a good education is to learn how to learn.
New Gate School’s course of study encompasses the full substance of the traditional curriculum and goes beyond to teach students how to think clearly, do their own research, express themselves well in writing and speech, and to put their knowledge to practical application.
We have organized our course of study as an inclined spiral plane of integrated studies, rather than a traditional model in which the curriculum is compartmentalized into separate subjects, with given topics considered only once at a given grade level. At New Gate School, lessons are introduced simply and concretely in the early years and are reintroduced several times during the following years at increasing degrees of abstraction and complexity. Our course of study is an integrated thematic approach that ties the separate disciplines of the curriculum together into studies of the physical universe, the world of nature, and the human experience.
The integrated approach is one of New Gate School’s greatest strengths. As an example, when our students study Africa in world history, they also read African folk tales in world literature, create African masks in art, learn Swahili songs in music, and make hieroglyphic calendars in math, as well as study African animals in zoology. Although we offer a warm, supportive academic atmosphere, we set a high level of expectation for the quality of thought and work and the mastery of content and skills.
As children reach the elementary years, they will be challenged to pursue a considerable amount of library and field research both in and outside of the school. In preparation for college, we consciously teach students how to develop effective work habits and test-taking strategies.
New Gate School is a college preparatory school with a rigorous, yet innovative, academic program. In each division of the school children progress through a carefully planned three-year curriculum. Along with the study of reading, writing, mathematics, science and Spanish, the New Gate School program includes art, music, and physical education. The New Gate School curriculum also includes a serious commitment to practical life skills, work-study skills and social skills.