Academics tailored to develop the skills you need to lead
Cajal Academy is a full service program bringing innovative thinkers through the journey from unlocking their gifts to developing the skills they need to lead
Our academic work is at the heart of our Vision to Voice curriculum: a comprehensive approach to developing the skills that innovative students will need in college and as the adults that they will become. It is the framework that allows us to not just deliver Connecticut state curriculum standards (though we do that too) but to develop the high analytical reasoning and creative thinking skills that all the students in our cohort share in common, while strengthening the executive function and peer collaboration skills that are essential to their success but where many students struggle. Our community-wide project-based learning framework also helps them learn to apply their skills even to problems that many not lie within their own interest areas: an essential skill for college and “real world” success.
These efforts are individualized for all learners through their unique Cajal Compass: a data-based analysis that helps them understand their own profiles. For students whose complex learning, social-emotional or neurophysio profiles interfere with their abilities to access their gifts, we take this a step further, through our Student Growth Catalysts: a comprehensive new approach to special needs that goes beyond accommodations to actually change the fundamentals of students’ learning profiles. Over time, this closes the gap between complex gifted and/or twice exceptional learners and their mainstream peers, expanding the number of settings and pursuits in which they can thrive.
Use the links below to learn more about the academic curriculum, pedagogies and approach at the heart of this ground-breaking program:
We leverage academic work to teach essential thought leadership skills
Our students collaborate to solve real world problems, helping them discover potential career paths and new perspectives that help them develop their vision of the changes they’d like to help create in the world; the critical thinking skills that give them original insights into how to solve those problems; and the executive function skills needed to turn those insights into action. Find out more about these and the other skills in the “Innovators Toolbox” that we teach through our unique Vision to Voice Curriculum.
We teach differently because of our students’ strengths — not just their challenges
We design all instruction to go through the critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills where our students excel, and then use the data in their profiles to reduce demand for their Not Yet Skills while we work to enhance them through our Student Growth Catalysts. Our project-based learning framework delivers Connecticut state standards through real world problems students must analyze, integrate differing perspectives and materials and then solve. This focus on critical thinking as the gateway to learning turns traditional scaffolding techniques on their head: a course correction that’s essential for our intellectually gifted cohort of kids.
We transform student profiles by reducing or even removing learning disabilities that other schools can only accommodate
We’ve made a break-through for the field of special education, with a research-backed approach that’s proving effective at reducing or even removing learning disabilities. This first-of-its-kind, neurodevelopmental approach is transformational for students, while holding the potential to dramatically reduce special education costs over time.
We meet students at their ability level, regardless of their age
All academic instruction is delivered in ability-based classes. Each student has a custom program, so they receive the curriculum that’s right for them even where they are either above or below grade level in one or more subjects. Asynchronous learning is common in our cohort, so our mixed age cohort helps us to align our complex learners with appropriately-matched peers.
We put academic learning into a bigger picture of personal growth
Academic strengths and challenges can play an outsized role in the personal identities and emotional journeys of intellectually-gifted (and especially twice exceptional) kids. Our Catalyst Method is a comprehensive approach that starts with the data in each child’s neuropsychological and neurophysiological profile and then “connects the dots” between their strengths and weaknesses, their academic journeys, their social functioning and their emotional health. Then we use a neuroscience-based approach to enhance the skills that are holding them back and foster the mindset required for growth.
We prepare college-bound teens with the academic and life skills they’ll need to succeed
Students staying at Cajal Academy through graduation make the shift in their upper high school years to building resilience for the newly-enhanced skills targeted through their Student Growth Catalysts to mastering and taking ownership of the advanced skills in our Vision to Voice Curriculum through their Senior Capstone Project.
Learn more about our Vision to Voice Curriculum and the skills in our “toolbox” for innovative thinkers
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