Featuring…
- Accelerated and imaginative curriculum
- Differentiated instruction for diverse learning styles and levels
- Knowledge, skills, and attitudes transferable to future careers
- Inquiry-based projects drive content mastery
- Real-life and imaginative applications of knowledge
- Compassion for a better world
The emotional intelligence program at Synapse was a key factor in our decision to send our daughter to the school. Learning self-awareness and practicing behavior which demonstrates respect for others, on a daily basis, are as important to us as parents as the academic portion of the program. Our daughter continues to make progress in the area of emotional intelligence and we are very pleased.
– Zachary Perryman, lawyer, parent
The Middle School Program: 11 and 12 year olds
Designed to provide complete academic requisites, the Middle School Academic Program will offer thematic and integrated classes in the following subjects: Science, Math. Social Studies, Language Arts, and Self-Science. The program will also offer creative communications classes including visual arts, drama, music, and digital media. Daily, the program begins with either Yoga or Tai-chi. Classes will be held from Monday to Friday from 9:00 A.M.- 2:00 P.M. The teachers of the program are content specialists and trained in the Synapse Institute pedagogy.
Middle school students need a learning environment where they feel safe, nurtured, and valued.
Moving from elementary school to middle school is a critical transition to adolescence. In this stage of heightened physical and emotional changes, the ability to grow one’s intellectual potentials poses a challenge to young learners.
Synapse Institute will offer an academic middle school program in the fall of 2009 as a response to requests from parents of gifted/talented, twice-exceptional, as well as learners of diverse learning styles in the Bay Area. The program will constitute an integrated academic strategy based on the latest neuroscience research and best educational practices. In the framework of a lab school, the experimental curriculum will provide an engaged, exciting, and compelling academic experience for middle school students.
Students will immerse in innovative, dynamic, and cutting-edge activities and projects where they merge passions with knowledge, experiences, and skills to fuel their successes. A key component of the program addresses middle school students’ need for a peer community that is positive and supportive. Socio-emotional skills will be taught to equip preteens with the tools and resources so they can thrive among their peers and in future communities. In this program, students will learn by practicing emotional intelligence. Guided by the framework of Six Seconds, the socio-emotional program teaches students to: Know yourself, Choose yourself, and Give yourself.
In a world of increasing competition and stressed out students, I want time and space for my children to be children. Of course I want rigorous academics but, equal to that, I want them to have a chance to dream, imagine, and feel. This is exactly the kind of experience Synapse Institute provides. We couldn’t be happier.
– Parent
Synapse Institute offers an imaginative, accelerated, and emotionally grounded learning environment. Based on neuroscience research and best educational practices, this program provides innovative, dynamic, and cutting-edge activities where students connect their passions with knowledge, experiences, and skills to fuel their success.
Differentiated for diverse learning styles and levels
Learning activities are designed to address multiple learning styles and achievement or developmental levels. Both informal and formal diagnostic procedures provide data about the students’ preferences.
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes transferable to future careers
Students connect classroom activities to actual professions. For example, they learn science through projects that engage them as chemists, lawyers, environmentalists, authors, educators, and/or engineers. Through experiential activities they learn about government, civilizations, algorithms, literary genres, and more —as these are applied in real-world contexts. More importantly, students discover how their unique talents, when developed, become pipelines for their possible future careers.
Inquiry-based projects drive content mastery
The focus of learning is in understanding and not in memorizing information. Comprehension of theoretical precepts is based upon the application of scientific and social research methodologies. Students learn by formulating questions and issues and by designing scholarly and experiment-oriented activities.
Real-life and imaginative applications of knowledge
Every module begins and ends with conversations of how the topic is connected to the students’ lives, and how new knowledge and skills can be applied to make a better world.
Compassion for a better world
Synapse Institute teaches emotional intelligence skills to equip young change makers with the tools and resources so future generations will thrive.
Optimism is the prerequisite emotional intelligence skill needed for creative interpretation and resolution to both personal and professional problems.
– Anabel L. Jensen, Ph.D.
To support the students’ development in these critical areas, Self-Science is taught weekly as a stand-alone course and, more importantly, as an embedded theme in the everyday learning experiences. The students own experiences, concerns, and questions drive the content. In his best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman praises it as a model program. These learnable skills—including emotional literacy, optimism, empathy, consequential thinking, and self-motivation—create self-awareness, self-management, and self-direction.
Enroll your child
Now accepting applications for 10-11 year olds
Class maximum is twelve students. The middle school program will be managed by a middle school coordinator and taught by subject matter specialists.
Enrollment process:
- Schedule an adult visit to the school by calling 650-685-9885.
- Download and complete a PROSPECTIVE STUDENT SCHOOL EXPERIENCE FORM at the registration page. To determine if the school is a fit, schedule a school visit to the elementary school. Call the office at 650-685-9885 or email marsha@6seconds.org.
- Download and complete a PRE-ADMISSION FORM at the registration page, attach a photo of your child, and mail the form to SYNAPSE INSTITUTE 2275 Edison Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025. This form is required prior to the pre-admissions HOME VISIT ASSESSMENT.
- If the student has not had an IQ test, he/she will need to schedule one. Call 650-685-9885 to schedule an IQ test.
- Schedule a PRE-ADMISSIONS HOME VISIT ASSESSMENT for your child by calling Marsha Rideout at 650-685-9885.
- Upon receiving an acceptance letter, to secure your child’s spot in the class, pay the reservation fee or the tuition fee.
