Podcast
Listen to our podcast, Making Learning Visible, on your favorite podcast platforms:
Follow us
Blog
News
Trustee Scholar Maddie Shani
At Renbrook School, eighth graders traditionally serve as leaders of the student body, running Morning Meeting, serving in senior positions on the student council, acting as team captains, playing major roles in the school musical, and more. Students can participate in the Trustee Scholar Project as one of their leadership roles.
Read More ...Cramphin Excellence in Education Award Winner – Becky Klein
Doug and Jane Cramphin served on the faculty of Renbrook School for a combined 78 years. They received monetary gifts in their names at the time of their retirement and have graciously paid it forward with the annual Cramphin Excellence in Education Awards. These awards recognize members of the faculty and staff who demonstrate passion, creativity, innovation, collaboration, strength in relationships, and a willingness to go above and beyond normal expectations, enabling others to excel. This year, three faculty members were chosen for this wonderful recognition and monetary awards. Today we celebrate Becky Klein.
Read More ...Renbrook Alumni Visit with Eighth-Grade Students
Our eighth-grade students enjoyed a visit with two Renbrook Alumni recently to talk about careers. There was no shortage of questions from our inquisitive students as they explored career options and choices in the area of arts and entertainment and government. We are grateful to Barrie Kreinik “00, an actor, singer, writer, and audiobook narrator based in New York City, and Vasishth Srivastava ’06 who serves as Chief of Staff for Hartford Mayor Luke A. Bronin.
Read More ...Trustee Scholar Alijah Sanford
Fifth-Grade Student Inspired by TED Talk
Alumni Visit with the Class of 2021
Trustee Scholars
Creating a Beehive of Innovation
At Renbrook, we are committed to project-based STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) education, a multidisciplinary approach to hands-on learning. We believe that giving our students the chance to tinker, create, and build shows them that they can impact systems and objects in their world. We want our students to see that they can bring their learning to life by creating effective solutions that integrate knowledge and skills across disciplines. We take children’s intellect and ideas seriously and strive to help them build a “maker mindset,” demonstrating the value of an iterative process. It is through such process-oriented work that our students discover that their outcomes can be refined and improved through self-reflection and sharing their work with others.
Renbrook’s Evolving Work for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
In 2020–2021, as our country renews its commitment to equity and justice, how is Renbrook applying our mission and values to this call to action?
Decades of faculty, parent, and student work (see sidebars) have laid the groundwork for this time. But the work is a long journey, and the national movement of the past year has offered new perspectives for deeper exploration. Facing the past, opening up dialogue in the present, and looking toward a future of healing and growth, Renbrook’s community is dedicated to the work.
Read More ...Celebrating 40 Years of “Mathtown” at Renbrook School
Renbrook Sports Survive the Pandemic
Tony Scherer ’82, long-time Upper School teacher and coach, whose love of sports, particularly baseball, is legend, offers this reflection.
FUN. That’s where it starts. The first time we run, the first time we play catch, the first time we hit a ball with something, the first time we throw a ball through a hoop. Sports are fun. (Or, if you prefer, sports is fun, if you think of “sports” as a collective singular noun, like “art” or “music.” English teachers think that way.)
Read More ...May 17: Kingswood Oxford 5-6:30 In-Person Spring Tour of Campus
For anyone interested in learning more about KO:“Explore how students discover their potential and passions in and out of the classroom while challenging themselves academically and personally. Come join us this evening for a campus tour, as well as engaging in conversations with other students and faculty about KO’s student-centered educational experience. A casual setting…
Read More ...May 11: Avon Old Farms: Virtual Open House
Come to An Open House at Avon! Explore our campus: talk to teachers and students, and discover why Avon is expert in educating boys. Naturally, we’re disappointed we can’t show you in person just how breathtaking our campus is—how each classroom teems with the energy boys create while actively learning; but alas, we welcome you to step foot…
Read More ...Renbrook Physical Education: Pandemic Style
Our campus was empty all spring. Students stayed at home, glued to their screens. Everyone was curious: How would our PE department keep kids active and motivated from a distance?
All spring, Athletic Director Peter Reynolds, Assistant Athletic Director Sarah Davis, and PE teacher Natalie Kirkpatrick motivated kids remotely by making videos in their back yards. They offered athletic challenges, communicating with energy and humor as they demonstrated: Shoot baskets into a trash can! Teach someone to do a proper squat! Here’s a drill you can try! Get on your bike and ride! Instagram became the new gym.
Read More ...Former Renbrook Parent and Trustee Pens Lolita in the Afterlife
In 1958, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was published in the United States by Walter Minton to immediate controversy and bestsellerdom. More than sixty years later Walter Minton’s daughter Jenny Minton Quigley, has edited Lolita in the Afterlife: On Beauty, Risk, and Reckoning with the Most Indelible and Shocking Novel of the Twentieth Century. Amazon describes: “This phenomenal novel generates as much buzz as it did when originally published. Central to countless issues at the forefront of our national discourse—art and politics, race and whiteness, gender and power, sexual trauma—Lolita lives on, in an afterlife as blinding as a supernova.”
Read More ...Technology in a Time of Pandemic: Versatility & Expansion
In March, when the curtain came down on school as we knew it, Renbrook was well-positioned to pivot to online learning. “We had done the heavy lifting in 2018-2019,“ says Dave Blodgett, Academic Technology Coordinator, “when we moved to a cloud-based system school-wide.” In March 2020, teachers and staff were already living in Microsoft’s “more is more” online environment, and the sudden onset of virtual school accelerated their exploration of new ways to connect with students using a variety of apps and platforms.
Read More ...A Conversation with Steve Arnold, Kindergarten Teacher
Mr. Arnold has spearheaded creative use of the Renbrook campus for 30 years. He recalls the origins of our trail system.
“You can see the remnants of Frederick Rentschler’s estate on the Yellow Trail and the part of the Blue Trail that leads from the bridge down to the Brook. Rentschler built stone steps in steep places, and they’ll still take you down to Canal Road and from the highest point on campus to below the ELC.”
Read More ...A Conversation with Howard Wright, Science Department Head
Outdoor Learning: Curiosity, Creativity, Community at Work
Given the treasure of our 75-acre campus, turning to the outdoors as the safest way to learn together has been a natural adaptation for Renbrook this year. Undoubtedly our location on Avon Mountain has been essential to our successful effort to hold school in person. But more than that, learning from nature has been a vital element of Renbrook’s philosophy and practice from the outset and is embedded in the school’s philosophy and traditions.
Read More ...