We don’t just accommodate children’s unique profiles, we transform them, through a paradigm shift in how we understand and address their needs.

Cajal Academy is a small and innovative K-12 school for bright, gifted and twice exceptional kids, at the heart of an expert non-profit dedicated to developing research-backed educational approaches that realize the promise of neuroscience research to transform student lives.

We’ve made a break-through for the field of education: a research-backed approach that is proving successful at reducing or even removing learning and in some cases social-emotional differences. The results for our students have been transformational—like a six grade level jump in reading and writing in just six months’ time, or a child isolated by social struggles who becomes recognized in community-based programs for their social leadership based on the skills they learned in the small social setting of Cajal.

At the heart of these transformational changes are a paradigm shift in how we understand children’s needs, and a second paradigm shift in what we do about them. Read more about this ground-breaking, research-backed approach and how we are using it to transform children’s profiles.

We leverage the connections between the body and the brain to accelerate student growth — and then give them agency over their own experiences by teaching them the science of how they can use these connections themselves.

Each student’s program is highly-individualized, using the data in their own profile to customize their learning, social and physio development. We integrate these learnings together for each child through our unique Growth Mindset and Agency Coaching, empowering them to continue their own growth in the community and beyond. Find out more about the exclusive interventions at the core of our model.

We redesigned school from the ground up to leverage the science of how kids learn, socialize and grow…

to help them become who they want to be

We set aside traditional expectations for how things are done at school and re-engineered it from the bottom up, using what neuroscientists know today about how the brain can change over time to better perform a given skill, how we can use connections between the body and the brain to re-regulate ourselves and how we can bring these things together to propel academic and personal growth. The result is a very different day to day experience, with morning reconnection through sensory activities, movement integrated into the classroom to accelerate academic learning, coaching in how to develop one’s own growth mindset and skills for learning how to self-monitor, self-manage and self-advocate for even the most complex neurophysiologic and learning needs. Highly-individualized programs come together through project-based learning, helping students learn how to engage deeply even when the topic of learning is outside their own personal interest areas: a critical skill for college and beyond. Attend an Information Session & Tour to come learn about what the day-to-day looks like at Cajal and whether it might be a good fit for your child.

Our students develop critical thinking, executive function and social skills while collaborating together to solve real world problems

Our academic curriculum delivers Connecticut state standards, but it does it through multi-disciplinary deep dives that further develop our cohort’s high critical thinking skills, and provides an authentic environment in which to develop the executive function and peer collaboration skills where they often struggle. Each project requires students to integrate curriculum across math, science, social studies and language arts and then manifest their learnings through tangible products and deliverables ranging from documentary films to 3D builds. This is just one of the ways that we’ve put all the best principles of “gifted” education at the heart of our program.

Cajal Academy offers a whole new approach to education, based on the neuroscience of how kids learn, socialize and grow.

What started as one mom’s determination to ensure that bright and gifted kids in Connecticut and Westchester County have access to a school with the opportunities and supports they need turned into a whole new model for schools that modernizes education to match current neuroscientific research.

 Read Testimonials from Cajal Academy Parents

Cajal Academy in the News

Cajal Academy admits students of any race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.

Are you an educator or clinician who’s passionate about empowering kids? Apply to join our team!