The Barstow School

[EduCativ]

The Barstow School is a co-educational school where students in preschool through twelfth grade develop in a challenging educational community. As stated initially by Mary Louise Barstow, the school's objective remains "to promote sound scholarship and give symmetrical development to mind, body, and character." The goals of The Barstow School are to:

• Graduate well-rounded and self-confident individuals
• Offer a rigorous and challenging college preparatory curriculum
• Provide opportunities to develop leadership and enhance skills for lifelong learning
• Develop highly-skilled, ethical users of technology
• Maintain a community that is diverse, accepting, and inclusive
• Promote service work to the community by students and adults
• Foster open communication among all constituents in the Barstow community
• Encourage the development of faculty through ongoing learning opportunities
• Act as good stewards of the institution's physical, financial, and human resources.

Choosing the right education for your child is an important decision. Finding a place where your child grows into Who They Are is priceless. The Barstow Admission Team is here to help your family find just the right fit. Whether you join our school community in a preschool, middle school, or as a freshman, we look forward to watching your child graduate from Barstow fully prepared for the challenges ahead.

The founders and subsequent generations of The Barstow School envision a school where a community of learners, adults, and children of all ages come together in a mutually supportive, trusting environment that nurtures intellectual, physical, emotional, and moral growth. In support of its legacy, Barstow envisions an educationally challenging community where:

• Students strive to be honest and trusting, expecting those same virtues from other community members
• Reason, imagination, and physical activity are necessary aspects of healthy development
• Students learn to take risks while pursuing excellence in all their activities, developing the resilience to learn from failures without damage to their psyches or their futures
• Students work and play in an emotionally safe and physically secure environment
• Students learn to accept the freedoms and responsibilities necessary to support a democratic community
• Students are open-minded, idealistic, and accepting
• Students develop self-discipline and, as a result, self-reliance
• Students articulate their understanding, listen to the thoughts of others, and share in a dialogue beneficial to the whole community
• Students demonstrate their knowledge through performance, presentation, and application, in addition to conventional assessments
• Students learn through extracurricular activities the importance of following rules precisely, practicing skills rigorously, and winning and losing graciously
• Educators and parents share with young people the joy and pride of their accomplishments
• Adults strive to model for students the highest standards of excellence, honesty, trust, and respect.

As a child grows with us, we build on students' experiences to broaden and deepen their knowledge. Most importantly, we help students take that knowledge and apply it in real-world settings. Teachers across all subject areas and grade levels, from preschool through grade 12, work together to create a learning progression. It might be a second-grader participating in the class bake sale during the rainforest unit to raise rainforest preservation funds. Or it could be an upper school theatre student, inspired by the school production of RENT, who plans a food drive. Whatever passion a student develops, Barstow's faculty will help them explore it.

The mission of The Barstow School is to promote sound scholarship and to give symmetrical development to mind, body, and character. The integration of technology is one manifestation of this mission. At The Barstow School, technological innovations create transformational learning. We weave technology throughout every grade level and subject area at Barstow. But even more than that, we structure the experience of students and faculty to remain on the cutting edge of preparing our learners for school demands and work in the 21st century.

The hammer and saw do not build the chair; the master carpenter does. The same is valid for technology. An iPad or laptop does not teach a child, but these tools can transform the learning experience in the hands and minds of master teachers and bright, curious learners.

Barstow's technology program is anything but linear. It grows organically, as knowledge does. It branches out in directions we sometimes do not anticipate, but always in ways that safely build students' knowledge and skills to use technology in their learning. In every division, students learn how to use technology appropriately, research new knowledge, and define problems and create solutions using various technology tools—some teacher-facilitated, others student-discovered. Coupling this with a focus on virtual organizational tools helps students become autonomous learners.

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