There are moments throughout our school’s past that illustrate our unshakable belief that doing what is best for our students in the long run is something that we are always willing to do, even when it comes with a tough cost. I was reminded of one of these pivotal turns as we hosted leaders of French schools in America at the conference of the Mission laïque française ( MLF), our most dynamic and progressive educational partner.

It’s something we’re all quite proud of, and I want to share that story with you today.

Bob Carignan, Head of School

 

When we looked closely at our math program six years ago, we knew that we had to modernize - it was time to embrace best practices and acknowledge that was almost certainly not going to be how our parents learned math (nor should it be!). After significant research looking at the future of teaching math and assessing how it could uniquely work within our immersion setting, Math Faculty Marzia Mauffrey and Kelly Babcock recommended that we leverage the Singapore approaches already being used in the Middle Years Programme and extend it so that all students would be learning with the global gold standard. The focus on mastery, achieved through proven sequencing of concepts, remains the leading math teaching model today. This approach is decidedly different than the math you were likely raised with, especially if you had your schooling in America. There is no rote memorization, but rather students learn to think mathematically, and rely on their accumulated knowledge as they become successful problem solvers.

Marzia Mauffrey in the classroom.

Flash forward to today. We now have one of the strongest math programs anywhere and our students are out-performing both their public and private school peers. The way this approach builds confidence and resourcefulness naturally prepares each student to excel in successively advanced math. As we learned during the MLf conference, the French government is adopting Singapore math as their standard program in all French schools both in France and the accredited schools worldwide (we are the only one in Denver). After showing these MLf leaders our Singapore math program and the amazing things we are doing with it, our faculty is being invited by schools across the country to help them implement similar programs.

I am proud of our school for continually embracing what is best for our students as our unwavering North Star. I’m ever-grateful to be part of a community that is truly moving not only our students forward, but educational approaches as well. These kids are going places. Join us on our journey.

We'd love to show you our educational model in action. Contact our Admissions Team to learn more.