What Academic Excellence and Challenge Look Like at Seattle Academy

By: Alison Ray, Dean of Teaching and Learning | Chelsea Adrada, Middle School Dean of Academics and Differentiated Curriculum | Hannah Chapin, Upper School Dean of Academics and Differentiated Curriculum

At Seattle Academy, we’re proud of our curriculum that redefines academic excellence. We believe that excellence goes beyond simply earning high grades, instead encompassing a well-rounded approach to learning and intellectual development. The breadth of our class offerings includes both core academic and elective courses that challenge students to question, imagine, and create, in order to contribute boldly to a changing world—and in the process, live out our school’s mission.

While acquired content knowledge is an essential aspect of our educational model, we place equal emphasis on students building transferable skills—critical thinking, problem solving, communication—and habits of learning, such as metacognition and responsibility, through rich and diverse curricular content. These qualities are what set our kids up for success in college and life beyond graduation. Additionally, we recognize that excellence means achieving a high standard of performance relative to a student’s individual goals and capabilities. Skilled teachers work to ensure every student is challenged and supported to achieve their academic personal best.

What does academic excellence look like in action?

Active Learning: Students engage deeply with content through discussion, collaboration, and interactive and hands-on learning. Working with topics and key issues relevant to a changing world gives students opportunities to apply and transfer what they’re learning both within and beyond the classroom.

Critical Thinking: Students learn to question assumptions, assess the credibility of sources and effectiveness of solutions, develop reasoned arguments, and synthesize ideas.

Creative Problem Solving: Students collaborate with peers to define problems, break down complex tasks, ask questions, and find solutions. Whether in an English or science or math or art class—any department—students are encouraged to iterate and experiment in moments of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Effective Communication: Students develop interpersonal communication and negotiation skills as they interact with diverse peers, learning to work with differ- ent points of view constructively. Additionally, they listen for under- standing in order to express their ideas clearly and persuasively in written, oral, and artistic forms.

Metacognition: Students reflect on their process and outcomes in order to make progress toward achieving their learning goals. Metacognitive skills build self-awareness and agency to cultivate self-directed learners.

What does academic challenge look like in practice?

SAAS teachers understand well that academic challenge is experienced relative to each learner. All of our departments take into account how the best practices of their disciplines align with institutional values, providing opportunities for academic challenge that is developmentally appropriate. While scholastic stretch might be unique to each student, we know that all students can experience academic challenge when they:

• Encounter increased complexity or novelty of content as they move through the breadth and sequence of our course offerings
• Apply and transfer knowledge in new and relevant contexts
• Collaborate in a community of diverse learners
• Develop independence and agency in their learning

While the precise measure of challenge is personal to a student’s own strengths and areas of growth, our “Know the Kid” guiding principle means that teachers help students engage in academic stretch specific to their unique opportunities for growth, personal goals, and curiosities.

In our English classes, for example, academic challenge looks like students reflecting on their choices as writers, addressing prompts with increasing levels of complexity over time, and integrating more rigorous sources to support their thinking as they become stronger readers. In World Languages classes, stretch looks like students solving problems of communication by using what they know in a target language to speak and make meaning. Rather than focus on their deficits, teachers help students build an increasingly nuanced vocabulary and set of communication strategies with a focus on growth.

In math classes, students work in groups to explore different pathways to find solutions and practice building convincing and logical arguments. Students also apply their understanding using problems that require them to draw on a broad range of skills in a new context, such as learning about inflation or finding patterns in algebraic representation.

We believe that students who are prepared for college and life understand who they are as learners and what skills they can deploy in service of that learning. Our approach to teaching and learning is grounded in the stages of adolescent development and creates space for exploration as well as opportunities for progressive levels of academic challenge.

Our students take grade-level courses designed as shared experiences to build essential skills and habits, and as they progress through our curriculum and prepare for their transition to college and their post-high school lives, they discover and explore new and confirmed areas of interest with more specialized courses. That holistic academic experience gives our students the foundation and confidence they need to continue on their paths of learning and to have impact in their future communities.