Vanguard

  • Fully collaborative staff implementing a cohesive curriculum

  • Daily schedule of 3 robust modules for sustained, fully integrated learning (Vanguard Model)

  • Authentic project based learning: collaboratively working through the process from idea to product to community showcase

  • Teachers with 20 years’ experience teaching Gifted Education all day every day

  • Whole gifted child approach

  • Conferences arranged as needs arise by request of parent, teacher, or student

  • Learning at the level and pace of the child in all subject areas

  • No assigned homework due to the richness and depth of the daily project based learning activities

  • Students’ progress available online at any time and reviewed by teachers daily

  • Authentic process for moving from idea to product, all completed by students at school

  • Students are coached to explore info and discover concepts; learning is assured

  • Blending of academic areas, including the arts, for a full spectrum understanding of applications in real world situations

  • 100% of tuition funding goes toward supporting our gifted program

Traditional Schools

  • Solo teacher applying curriculum in own classroom with few collaboration opportunities across grade levels or between subject areas

  • Daily schedule of 8 or 9 subject-specific periods limited by time constraints (traditional model)

  • Group projects that may lack coaching on collaborative skills or clear expectations of outcomes

  • Teachers of varied qualifications teaching 30-minute gifted pull-out courses a handful of times a week

  • May be geared mainly toward academically high achievers

  • Conferences prescheduled by calendar

  • Learning at grade level

  • Time-consuming, nightly homework that interferes with family activities and other interests

  • Students' progress reviewed by teachers weekly and sent home on graded worksheets, well after the time this feedback is relevant

  • At-home projects requiring both student and parent time, resulting in frustration

  • Teachers tell students information; strength of learning is uncertain

  • Academics structured into, and limited by, subject area

  • The State of Illinois provides $0 in funding for gifted education; school districts vary in how they provide for their gifted students, sometimes only offering acceleration