Our Campus

Upper School

Welcome to Central Park School for Children Upper School! I’m Charlie, the Director of the Upper School.

Our learning process in Upper School guides student growth from childhood to adolescence. Learning advances with increased emphasis on real world learning, students’ passions and healthy relationships, further deepen their joy for learning that lasts a lifetime.

Our Upper School educators love this age of growth–did you know neuroscientists have found that the only other time when brain development is happening so rapidly is between 0-3 years of age? Our greatest gift to our graduates is that they become leaders of their learning; confident courageous advocates for their growth as well as their communities.

As a Project Based Learning (PBL) school, “Student Voice & Choice” drives all that we do in our Upper School. We are uniquely student-centered in every aspect of our program. From project work to clubs, sports to art and performance, community norms to overall school culture—student interests and ideas shape what we study, what we offer, and how we exist together in our learning environment. We believe it is important for students to have agency over their school experience – it’s critical during the ages of 9-14 when so much of their life is changing.

With a focus on Identity, Relationships, and Community, our students strive to understand their own identity, the identities of those around them, and how all of those relationships connect to make up our community.

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Project Work

Students collaborate to pursue “Guiding Questions” that relate to their lives and further academic pursuit. Answering these questions takes time, field work, research, discussion, seminar, reading, group exploration, individual discovery and collaboration with teachers. Projects may span a few weeks, a quarter, a semester or sometimes a whole year! The final product is a Project Share to showcase student learning and progress toward “answering” the Guiding Questions.

Differentiation

One size does NOT fit all! We understand that our learners are diverse and unique in their learning styles and needs. Students may need remediation, intervention or extension. They may need guided notes, assistance with writing skills, voice to type and more. We provide:

In class differentiated instruction
Intervention (support) throughout the day in class and outside of class with a Learning Specialist
Extension (extra) with clusters of students working on more advanced standards in Math and English Language Arts. (see the High School Math section for more information about advanced math courses)
Student Voice and Choice in project work

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PHAM

PHAM (PE, Health, Art, Media)

An extension to our core academic instruction includes our PHAM – Physical Education (PE), Health (physical, nutritional, mental, social health), Art, and Media. Art classes often connect to the core classes in relation to project work. Health class directly supports the Social Emotional Learning of our young people. Students may work on project work and gain skills in these classes that aid them in project work.

Daily Recess

We believe that students need to continue to move their bodies as part of a healthy life. While most elementary or lower schools still include some recess or outdoor time, most middle or upper schools do not provide time in the daily schedule for recess. We play outside DAILY.

Adolescents need this time for physical activity, social interaction and social emotional wellbeing. We only stay inside if it is too rainy or dangerously hot or cold. We keep 5th and 7th graders near our building, recessing around the perimeter of our campus. The 6th and 8th graders walk to Durham Central Park for recess each day. When we move to our new building, grade levels 4-8 will recess around the North Street property as well as Old North Durham Park.

In addition to scheduled recess, our students have access to exercise equipment including exercise bikes and individual trampolines as needed. This equipment is in an open area and students can go there when they need to let out some energy or to regulate their sensory system.

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Daily Crew

As students move through middle school, they are not “passengers”, they are “crew” working together in our learning community. Students are assigned to crews and those groups have a teacher advisor that serves as the liaison between home and school. There are various times built into our school day for crews to be together – during snack, lunch, PHAM time, and daily crew/study hall time.

Student Led Conferences

In our middle school, students monitor and share their own growth through our student-led conferences and that will soon include a portfolio component as well. In these conferences, students share:

Personal goals for themselves and progress towards those goals
Academic goals for themselves and progress towards those goals
Areas for improvement – personally, academically, and socially
Work Samples, including project work, science labs, writing assignments, art pieces, and other types of artifacts that show their learning and progress towards state standards
Progress towards Habits of Mind and Heart
Progress towards Habits of Scholarship

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Assessment & Feedback

How often are you presented with letter or number grades to describe your performance at work? Not often! We believe in Standards-based Grading as the best system for showing growth and progress towards standards. At the end of each quarter, we share progress towards State Standards using the following system:

M- Mastery

I – Independent

P – Progressing

S – Support Needed

U – Unable to score/not taught yet/not demonstrated

Learning should be relevant, especially for adolescents! Like our elementary school, we do not use a traditional approach to education, but rely on flexibility and creativity. Rubrics are used to guide and assess project work. Students participate in critique and revision throughout. We are less concerned with “right” and “wrong” and percentage of questions correct. We are very concerned with knowledge of standards and the ability to show understanding through a variety of forms.

Athletics

The middle school offers a variety of sports for students. Those include STEP team, girl’s and boy’s soccer, basketball, cross country, track, and volleyball.

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