“If it is true that learning is a developmental and sequential process, that there are striking differences in developmental rates among individuals of the same age, and that effective teaching must be grounded where the learner is, then how do we justify an educational system that ignores competence and achievement, and utilizes chronological age as the primary, or only, factor in student placement?”
Is your child spending valuable learning time waiting:
for teachers to move ahead?
for classmates to catch up?
to learn something new?
Is the traditional school model not a fit for your child?
At Vanguard, children are clustered across multiple age groups in bands, allowing for more flexibility in learning at their readiness levels, yet honoring their social emotional need for same-age peers.
Band 1
Generally grades K, 1, 2
Band 2
Generally grades 3, 4, 5
“The answer is not to standardize education, but to personalize and customize it to the needs of each child and community. There is no alternative. There never was.”
Equipping young children for change
It is difficult to define today what the world will look like a mere few years from now. How do you prepare young children to confidently engage with a world that is constantly changing?
“In a word, [traditional] learning is decontextualized. We break ideas down into tiny pieces that bear no relation to the whole. We give students a brick of information, followed by another brick, followed by another brick, until they are graduated, at which point we assume they have a house. What they have is a pile of bricks, and they don’t have it for long.”
Blending knowledge across academic domains
Working in gifted education during the arrival of so many technical advances made it evident to Vanguard teachers that the traditional assembly line model of education is no longer academically adequate for gifted children nor is it developing the life skills needed for their futures.
With information at their fingertips and an eagerness to learn, it is stifling for gifted children to be placed in age-level groupings where they are made to wait for learning opportunities based on peers, class periods, and teacher readiness.
In many schools, technology and the arts are treated as separate learning domains, requiring separate class periods and resulting in piecemeal knowledge on the part of students, rather than a full spectrum conceptual understanding attained within a more integrated school day.
Vanguard Gifted Academy is redesigning the education system
VGA uses technology as a tool for personalizing skill development, developing projects and solving problems. At VGA, children are taught in small, multi-aged groups of academic peers based upon their current readiness to learn, which is best practice in gifted education. VGA teaches gifted children that conceptual understanding comes by blending knowledge across academic domains, enabling each gifted child to make connections to their personal strengths. VGA stresses that collaborating with others allows for more innovative projects, solutions to real life problems, and success in developing ideas from thoughts to accomplishments. VGA teaches gifted children the process of transforming ideas into successful results through developing hands-on applications, analyzing, reflecting, revising, rebuilding, and presenting to an authentic audience.
Top 10 Skills Important in the Workforce
Many future required skill sets are rarely addressed by our current education system. At VGA, we teach all of the essential academics as well as creative problem solving techniques, which prepare children for an ever-changing future. (Source: Future of Jobs Report, World Economic Forum)
2015
Complex Problem Solving
Coordinating with Others
People Management
Critical Thinking
Negotiation
Quality Control
Service Orientation
Judgement and Decision Making
Active Listening
Creativity
2020 and beyond
Complex Problem Solving
Critical Thinking
Creativity
People Management
Coordinating with Others
Emotional Intelligence
Judgement and Decision Making
Service Orientation
Negotiation
Cognitive Flexibility