Private High School in Stamford, CT

The Spire School of Greenwich Education Group, Stamford:
Located in Stamford in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The Spire School is a co-educational, private, college preparatory day-school and part of the Greenwich Education Group. The school provides education to students in grades 6-12 who are underachieving academically due to social and emotional challenges. Our school integrates individualized academics with a health and wellness curriculum for students who are intellectually capable, but may not be performing optimally due to social and emotional difficulties such as low self-confidence, social isolation, or difficulties coping with stress. Spire's educational program is built on an individualized, community-based model that emphasizes wellness of mind and body. Spire students are taught to identify and build upon their strengths in order to develop strong self-management and interpersonal skills.

Academics

In addition to our wellness programs, we also offer a detailed academic program for students in grades 6-12.  At Spire, we offer core subjects at every level, including honors and AP level courses. Additionally, we offer instruction in many foreign languages, such as Latin, Mandarin, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew, Italian, and Japanese.

Spire’s individualized model enables core academics to be enriched by a variety of interdisciplinary and elective courses, depending on a student’s interest. Such electives have included computer science, environmental studies, economics, philosophy, introduction to neuroscience, abnormal psychology, and music theory. Across the curriculum, the goal at Spire is to create a supportive and collaborative community where every student can be a successful learner.

Our academic program incudes:
- Challenging college preparatory high school curriculum
- Honors and AP level courses
- Wide range of foreign language courses
- Diverse independent studies
- Individualized electives
- Comprehensive SAT/ACT prep
- Advanced art and music instruction

Wellness Programs

- Educational Therapy
At The Spire School, we subscribe to an Educational Therapy approach that strives to work with students holistically. Adolescents are impacted by a variety of internal and external influences that shape their attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and feelings. As such, Educational Therapy is a practice that serves to demystify cognitive and emotional issues. It enhances students’ awareness of their strengths, while helping them understand how to use these strengths to help overcome or compensate for areas of weakness.

- Metacognitive Instruction
Metacognition, or “thinking about one’s thinking,” is the ability to exert control over cognitive processes through self-reflection and self-correction. It is a higher-order executive function that involves filtering, monitoring, analyzing, planning, problem solving, and decision-making, and enables active control over the cognitive processes engaged in attention, adaptation, learning and memory. Activities such as planning how to approach a task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating progress toward the completion of a task are examples of metacognition in action.

- Positive Psychology
On a more individual level, The Spire School employs the principles of Positive Psychology and building self-efficacy. Positive Psychology is a scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to survive and thrive. Contrary to the problem-focused models of traditional psychology, Positive Psychology asserts that an enriched, productive and fulfilling life involves far more than just the resolution of problems.

- Strengths Based Instruction
Strengths-Based Instruction is a teaching philosophy that utilizes the strengths and talents of each student to enhance their sense of empowerment and increase confidence in the classroom and beyond. This practice encourages students to admit lack of knowledge as a means to move beyond feelings of inadequacy. In its place, we foster a proactive approach to learning. At The Spire School, we promote healthy risk-taking and the exploration of novel areas to diversify students’ interest and knowledge. We address students’ unique attitudes, behaviors, and ways of thinking to assist their development toward becoming responsible and motivated individuals who are capable of setting and achieving goals.

- Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy, an important theory highly congruent with the principles of Positive Psychology, involves students’ beliefs about their performance capabilities and their perceived abilities to influence circumstances that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how students feel, think, motivate, and react. A strong sense of efficacy, or confidence, can have a significant effect on life choices, level of motivation, quality of functioning, and overall well-being. Students with high confidence in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered and as opportunities for personal growth, rather than as threats to be avoided. This constructive outlook promotes intrinsic motivation and active engagement in activities.