Harbour School Basic Principles (as per their website!)
1. At The Harbour School, we believe that kindness, caring and respect are
essential characteristics in the continuing creation of a better world. These
attributes are reflected in the attitudes and behaviors of teachers towards
students, students towards teachers, the school towards the community, and
peers towards each other.
2. At The Harbour School, we believe that every person has individual strengths
and weaknesses in cognitive, academic, social, behavioral, physical and
artistic functioning. We make every attempt to recognize, value, build and
celebrate our strengths while strongly addressing our areas of weakness.
3. At The Harbour School, we believe that the fundamental skills of civilized
cultures, including most importantly reading, written expression, and
mathematics, are the building blocks of further knowledge. These skills are
taught through systematic, intensive, and measurable curricula.
4. At The Harbour School, we also believe in the importance of an international
cultural literacy reflecting the acquisition of a body of knowledge in the areas
of history, geography, science, the arts and technology that are or should be
common to all educated persons. We work with a well-developed framework
that encompasses these areas of cultural literacy so that knowledge builds on
past learning and prepares students to emerge with a comprehensive sense of
their own identities as global citizens with historical perspectives.
5. At The Harbour School, we believe that social skills and social development
are essential to both a healthy lifestyle and professional success. Social,
ethical and psychological skills and understanding are explicitly taught so that
students develop the confidence and skills necessary to creating a strong social
support network, developing and maintaining friendships, resolving conflicts,
negotiating business and personal interactions, and operating as part of a team.
6. At The Harbour School, we believe that children learn many things best by
being actively engaged. Hands-on activities, in which students actively
participate in the acquisition of knowledge, are a basic part of our curriculum.
Field trips are considered to be fundamental, not to be extra to the process of
learning.
7. At The Harbour School, we believe that education should be customized as
much as possible to fit the individual abilities, skills, interests, personalities
and goals of the students. We attempt to do this by maintaining very small
class sizes, a balance of abilities within classrooms, a high teacher:student
ratio, individual and small group pull-out programs, online programming, or
other programs appropriate for the students.
8. At The Harbour School, we believe that every individual has an evolving set
of circumstances that may result in different requirements in order to best
facilitate learning. We make every attempt to approach situations and
individuals with flexibility, respect and kindness, basing our decisions upon
the values of our school and the individual circumstances at hand.