The Thaden Difference
Lower School
Experiential Play-Based Learning
Students engage in experiential place-based learning, spending significant amounts of time outside of the classroom--in nature and in the city, punctuated by periods of reflection where students set goals with their teachers and have opportunities to transfer their learning into different contexts. Stand-alone explicit instruction in language arts and math is reviewed and applied in integrated inquiry-based learning units ensuring that students’ learning is enduring.
Outdoor Education
Research shows that children who spend time in nature learning and exploring have better concentration, stronger immune systems, and feel less stress. They are also more likely to become responsible stewards of the natural world. Thaden uses this knowledge to ensure our students reach their fullest potential. Outdoor experiences are interwoven into every day. We leverage the outdoors through five strands: academic inquiry, gardening and sustainability, naturalism, play, and team building and adventure. We use our campus green space, gardens, greenhouse, teaching kitchen, and the parks across Northwest Arkansas to provide students access to the natural world.
Social Emotional Learning
The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction. Therefore, our social curriculum is as important as our academic curriculum. We start each day with a Morning Meeting and end each day with a Closing Circle. These structures allow children to anticipate future activities, build relationships with classmates, and practice listening and speaking skills as they discuss the joys and challenges of being part of a learning community. When we create conditions of safety and belonging, students are ready to try new things, take academic risks, and learn to disagree respectfully. Cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, and empathy are central to our classroom communities where students can talk about the hopes and dreams we all share, while feeling pride in their uniqueness. Additionally, an environment rooted in joy and developmentally appropriate practices allows students to access curricula and build friendships. At Thaden, children grow both a strong foundation of academic and social skills that will serve them today and into their bright futures.
Our Teachers
Our teachers are not only teachers; they are learners, too. Through individual and whole school professional development, they hone their practice by collaborating with each other, reading the latest research, and carefully planning integrated learning experiences. How our teachers work together is as important as their individual skill. They partner through planning and reflection as they think deeply about individual student learning and the class. Thaden teachers also have a deep understanding of child development that informs the scope and sequence of our teaching and our classroom management.
Technology
Technology is a powerful tool that can enhance students’ experience when used in an active and well-planned manner. Thaden Lower School’s technology use is age-appropriate and limited in Kindergarten and Grade 1. Starting in Grade 2, students begin to learn how to document their learning, use apps for productivity, and use iPads and other devices as tools to enhance learning. Each year we build upon these skills, so students enter Middle School with a foundation in word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software. We believe in hands-on creation-oriented technology implementation that allows students to communicate, think critically, and create content instead of being passive consumers. In the higher grades, our teachers focus on skills, application, and digital citizenship in stand-alone and integrated lessons. Our students also learn to be good discerners of information. We provide an interactive and safe environment with cutting-edge, age-appropriate technology to enhance learning in a digital world.
Middle School
Intensives
Intensives are one- or two-week periods of study in which students replace their regular weekly schedule to participate in one course that meets all day, every day. This allows students to engage in educational experiences that are not always easily facilitated during our typical 60- and 90-minute class periods. Intensives also allow for the development of creative interdisciplinary course offerings that are complementary to but distinct from Thaden’s core curriculum. Intensives leverage the special interests and expertise of our nationally recruited faculty by giving them considerable discretion in the design of their courses. Intensive course offerings represent our faculty’s passion, creativity, and interdisciplinarity. Similarly, throughout Intensives teachers use a wide range of pedagogical methods – from seminar-style discussions to hands-on activities – that collectively enhance students’ versatility as problem solvers who can work creatively and collaboratively in a rapidly changing world.
One Intensive from 2023, titled "Inside Intensives" allowed students to take on the role of a professional documentary filmmaker, working in groups to make multiple mini-documentaries about the Thaden Intensive Experience. To see some of the students' work check out our Inside Intensives Youtube Playlist. To view Intensive courses for the 2024-25 academic year, click here.
Community-Based Learning
Community-Based Learning (CBL) courses give students opportunities to work with local organizations on “real world” issues in Northwest Arkansas. They also allows students the opportunity to explore classes that align with their interests, and form and investigate their own questions. Some of the CBL classes offered include: Design Thinking, Service to Humanity, and Climate Advocacy.
Advisory
One of the distinctive promises of a Thaden education is that our students have many opportunities to form close, lasting relationships with their teachers – relationships that give them a stronger sense of belonging, self-confidence, and accountability. To that end, we offer an Advisory program that is designed to ensure that each student has a dedicated faculty mentor to whom the student can turn for guidance and support on all matters – curricular, co- curricular, and social-emotional. Advisors also serve as the principal liaison between the school, our students, and their parent/guardian.
Above all, Advisory is a smaller community within the larger Thaden community. It provides a warm and welcoming environment where all students can build relationships. In doing so, they also build social-emotional skills through a curriculum that targets skills such as self-awareness, self-management, and responsible decision making.
Additionally, Advisors provide academic guidance by regularly checking in with their advisees about their progress, helping their advisees set personal goals and manage their workload, and prompting their advisees to advocate for themselves in the classroom.
Office Hours
Office hours are built into students schedules in order for students to meet with teachers or learning specialist. During this time students are encouraged to seek assistance with assignments, ask questions about lessons, and check in on academic progress. Office hours can even be scheduled to get to know teachers better!
Writing Coaching
Thaden Writing Coaching offers students the opportunity to schedule one-on-one coaching sessions with dedicated faculty members. Writing Coaching ensures that our students can find support for their academic work at every stage of the writing process– from brainstorming and outlining to revising essays– across departments. Our Coaches encourage students to hone their unique writerly ‘voice’ while helping them develop and apply their writing skills. Writing Coaching faculty also collaborate with their peers across grade levels and academic departments to align writing expectations and to facilitate student success.
Upper School
Intensives
Intensives are one- or two-week periods of study in which students replace their regular weekly schedule to participate in one course that meets all day, every day. This allows students to engage in educational experiences that are not always easily facilitated during our typical 60- and 90-minute class periods. Intensives also allow for the development of creative interdisciplinary course offerings that are complementary to but distinct from Thaden’s core curriculum. Intensives leverage the special interests and expertise of our nationally recruited faculty by giving them considerable discretion in the design of their courses. Intensive course offerings represent our faculty’s passion, creativity, and interdisciplinarity. Similarly, throughout Intensives teachers use a wide range of pedagogical methods – from seminar-style discussions to hands-on activities – that collectively enhance students’ versatility as problem solvers who can work creatively and collaboratively in a rapidly changing world.
One Intensive from 2023, titled "Inside Intensives" allowed students to take on the role of a professional documentary filmmaker, working in groups to make multiple mini-documentaries about the Thaden Intensive Experience. To see some of the students' work check out our Inside Intensives Youtube Playlist.
Community-Based Learning
Community-Based Learning (CBL) courses give students opportunities to work with local organizations on “real world” issues in Northwest Arkansas. They also allows students the opportunity to explore classes that align with their interests, and form and investigate their own questions. Some of the CBL classes offered include: Design Thinking, Service to Humanity, and Climate Advocacy.
Advisory
One of the distinctive promises of a Thaden education is that our students have many opportunities to form close, lasting relationships with their teachers – relationships that give them a stronger sense of belonging, self-confidence, and accountability. To that end, we offer an Advisory program that is designed to ensure that each student has a dedicated faculty mentor to whom the student can turn for guidance and support on all matters – curricular, co- curricular, and social-emotional. Advisors also serve as the principal liaison between the school, our students, and their parent/guardian.
Above all, Advisory is a smaller community within the larger Thaden community. It provides a warm and welcoming environment where all students can build relationships. In doing so, they also build social-emotional skills through a curriculum that targets skills such as self-awareness, self-management, and responsible decision making.
Additionally, Advisors provide academic guidance by regularly checking in with their advisees about their progress, helping their advisees set personal goals and manage their workload, and prompting their advisees to advocate for themselves in the classroom.
Office Hours
Office hours are built into students schedules in order for students to meet with teachers or learning specialist. During this time students are encouraged to seek assistance with assignments, ask questions about lessons, and check in on academic progress. Office hours can even be scheduled to get to know teachers better!
Writing Coaching
Thaden Writing Coaching offers students the opportunity to schedule one-on-one coaching sessions with dedicated faculty members. Writing Coaching ensures that our students can find support for their academic work at every stage of the writing process– from brainstorming and outlining to revising essays– across departments. Our Coaches encourage students to hone their unique writerly ‘voice’ while helping them develop and apply their writing skills. Writing Coaching faculty also collaborate with their peers across grade levels and academic departments to align writing expectations and to facilitate student success.
Senior Thesis
Senior theses are an opportunity to pursue original research in partnership with faculty mentors. Students may develop their projects from ideas sparked by past courses or pursue topics of long-standing personal interest. Previous senior thesis topics have included: Tyson’s impact on Northwest Arkansas waterways; representations of femininity and masculinity in utopian novels; the promises and pitfalls of the North American Free Trade Alliance; and the displacement of the Marshallese following the United States’ testing of nuclear weapons on their home islands in the Pacific. Some of the scholarship produced by our seniors has even become part of our curriculum.
