Hogarth Country Day School
Established 1980
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Mixed-Age Benefits |
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I seriously started thinking about incorporating mixed-age options into programs at Hogarth after reading an article about Sidwell Friends School, the school that Chelsea Clinton attended in Washington, D.C., and that Malia and Sasha Obama currently attend. The article was written at the time Chelsea was a Sidwell student, and Sidwell was offering single-age and mixed-age options at the prekindergarten to grade 4 levels. It got me thinking, and I started investigating the possibility of developing mixed-age programs at Hogarth.
Research indicates that age is a crude indicator of what learning experiences children are ready for. We have come to understand that mixed-age groupings can be a source of rich intellectual and social benefits. Children are exposed to information and models of competencies only available in natural, mixed-age groups. Mixed-age groups present older children with opportunities to nurture, one of the most valuable skills these "future parents" can possess. Younger children will be presented with play experiences and problem solving techniques much more complex than those found in same-age settings. Younger children are capable of participating and contributing to far more complex activities than they could initiate in a same-age setting. Research shows that in mixed-age groups older children spontaneously facilitate younger children's behavior, whereas in same-age settings there is more likelihood of domineering behavior.
I have found all of this to be true within the mixed-age programs offered at Hogarth.
Source:
The Benefits of Mixed-Age Grouping by Lilian G. Katz, an ERIC Digest article.
It's hard to put into words all the wonderful things I feel for you and the excellent job you have done in the past four years with my children. I feel like Hogarth has been an extension of our family! W.J., Satisfied Parent