Multiage Classrooms and Gifted Students

At Seabury, a child’s grade level does not determine the level of challenge or the kind of work the child is given.  All of Seabury’s students are working above grade level (and sometimes significantly above grade level) in at least in some areas.  And because no one is equally good at everything, some students may be working at, or sometimes even below, grade level in other areas.  

Seabury students, like all gifted children, also develop asynchronously. They are many ages and stages at the same time, so their intellectual ability may be ahead of their academic skills, emotional development and physical development. Seabury teachers work with students on multiple levels at the same time – developing higher level, complex thinking while finding and filling gaps in their learning that may have developed as they moved through skills quickly on their own.  They also adapt high level curriculum to the age and development of the student – you can’t give a kindergarten student who is capable of doing fifth grade math a textbook meant for fifth graders who can read the text, copy problems to their own paper, and have the attention span to work for extended periods of time. Our middle school students do labs in science that are designed for AP high school classes and college classes, so they have to be adapted for the age of our kids.   

In practice, this means a first-grade student might read at a fifth-grade level but with the limited understanding that comes from being 6. They might be doing math at a third grade level, but may need some extra help to develop their conceptual understanding because they have been really good at memorizing algorithms without really understanding why they work. They might struggle with writing because they are still developing the fine muscles in their hands, and because their ideas come so much faster than they are able to capture them on paper. They may be able to talk about the solar system like an astronomer. They may have empathy that is well beyond a typical -year-old.  And they may argue like an attorney, with have a strong sense of justice, but with arguments that are more reflective of their age and limited life experience.

Multiage classes are different from the traditional split classes you may have grown up with.  In a multiage class, the curriculum content is the same for all students, but the skills and learning goals are tailored to the readiness of individual students regardless of their grade or age.  The same writing assignment may be given to all of the students, for example, but for one student success might be writing a paragraph and for another it might be writing a three page essay.  Everyone gets what they need, when they need it.  Groupings change from unit to unit and from subject to subject so that every student can collaborate with others who have similar interests or are at a similar place of readiness.  Multiage classrooms make it more likely that students will find intellectual peers, academic peers and social peers that they can learn and grow with.

At Seabury, we meet students where they are and help them progress as they are ready, paying attention to all of the ages and stages they are at the same time.  Having students in multiage classrooms is just one of the many tools we use to challenge and support our gifted students.

Sandi Wollum

Head of School