Our academic and social-emotional curricula are purpose-built to develop the skills that our innovative cohort of students will need for a future defined by their strengths

Our Vision to Voice Curriculum develops the skills that bright and gifted kids need to realize their unique ways of seeing the world as new products, scientific discoveries and artistic creations that can benefit us all. This goes beyond the Connecticut state curriculum requirements (though we meet those too) and traditional tenants of “gifted education” to develop the super-sized executive function, peer collaboration, social leadership and growth mindset that this requires.

For students who struggle in these areas, the curriculum is heavily scaffolded using the data-driven differentiation, coaching and specialized instruction included in their Student Growth Catalysts. This neuroscience-based approach has proven successful at reducing or even removing learning and in some cases social-emotional challenges, making our student profiles highly dynamic with some students seeing dramatic improvements in as short as a year. Our Catalyst Method uses the data in each student’s profile to meet them where they are and then enhances the deficient skills that interfere with their ability to access and enjoy their areas of strength. Our Vision to Voice Curriculum ensures that they have the skills they need to engage in the pursuits that they are likely to find intellectually rewarding on the other end of that journey. That culminates in our Senior Capstone Project, which transfers agency over the learning process to the student: a central tenant of our portrait of a Cajal Academy graduate.

All aspects of our academic and social-emotional curricula are purpose-built to develop these skills, as is the framework of our program itself. This curriculum is delivered, for all learners, through project-based learning, social-emotional skills and specialized coaching that gives them a sense of agency over their own experience while fostering a growth mindset. Each of these areas is scaffolded and differentiated for our students who have learning, social-emotional and/or neurophysio differences. Learn more about those components below.

We purpose-built every aspect of our students’ academic and social-emotional experiences to help them master these innovation skills

Our program combines “gold standard” approaches for working with intellectually-gifted kids (like small class sizes and no-ceiling, purposeful learning) with research-backed, proven pedagogies and supports that use well-established neuroscience to accelerate students’ learning and growth. Our educators work hand in hand with licensed experts in how children learn, socialize and grow, taking down the silos that slow student progress and giving our teachers the knowledge they need to make the data-driven insights that move our complex learners forward. Learn more about the core components of our programming framework below.

Portrait of a Cajal Academy graduate: prepared for college, or whatever the next step on their journey may be

Our Vision to Voice Curriculum is an integral part of our framework for preparing some of our highest-potential students to be ready to succeed not just professionally but socially and emotionally in college and as the adults they will become. In developing each student’s program, we start by looking not at the future prospects that seem likely for the profile that they have when they join us, but at what the future would look like if you could strip away the challenges that hold them back and give them one defined by their gifts. Then we reverse-engineer from that future back to the present, to understand the skills they will need to develop as we work to reduce those challenges utilizing our exclusive, research-backed Catalyst Method.

Those students who stay at Cajal through their senior year will shift from learning new skills to building the resilience and independence that will be essential in college and beyond. All seniors are required to conduct a Senior Capstone Project, independently applying our methodology to develop their own project-based learning in an area that interests them. The net result is a graduate who is empowered as a global citizen, a scholar, a leader, a social actor and with the skills they need to optimize their own learning, social and emotional experiences. These are essential skills for college, and for turning their unique vision for the world into leadership in their chosen field down the road. This may sound unrealistic, but this is precisely what we successfully did for our first graduate, who is now a design major at the top college for his field, where he is being successful academically and socially because he mastered this very toolbox of skills. You can read that story here, and contact us to see how we can prepare your child for the future they are meant to lead.

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