Remarkable Opportunities
Trinity’s commitment to the founding core value of “enriched academic excellence” comes to life in several distinctive and innovative programs offered to students at various grade levels.
Project Expert
In 3rd and 4th Grade students participate in an innovative program called Project Expert. Project Expert offers students the opportunity to learn research skills as they choose a topic and study it throughout the school year. The classroom teacher, the librarian, the technology teacher, and the Think Tank teacher jointly guide students in Project Expert.
Goals of Project Expert include:
- Increase the time students spend working with informational text
- Create opportunities for students to use informational text for authentic purposes
- Provide an opportunity for students to apply library skills
- Teach reading lessons specific to navigating informational text
- Provide a forum for students to write in multiple genres
- Increase the use of technology in research, communication and presentations
- Increase our awareness of our “global connectedness” through the use of technology
- Provide the opportunity to work collaboratively with others in our school and around the world
Think Tank
Like gifted and talented programs offered in other schools, Trinity’s Think Tank is designed to teach students creative and critical thinking skills. The difference at Trinity is that every student, beginning in kindergarten, spends time in the Think Tank each week. Recognizing that the ability to think clearly and reason logically is a primary goal of education, Think Tank explores how inventors use their imaginations, how curiosity motivates, how brainstorming can inspire, and how elaboration makes things more interesting. “Thinker Tasks” allow students to put these theories into action, alone and in groups: add a 13th month to the calendar, giving it a name and holidays; develop a new ending for a favorite story; list the problems of a President of the United States; think of something boring and make it interesting; invent a new sandwich. These exercises are designed to encourage original high-level thinking and problem solving – in Think Tank, all responses are accepted and ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas are welcomed.
Opportunities for Leadership: Trinity Student Council
Trinity Middle School students develop leadership skills through student council opportunities. Each year the student council elects 4 officers from the 7th and 8th grade class. The President of the Trinity Student Council comes from the 8th grade class. The 5th and 6th grade class members participate by serving as an Advisory Representative from one of the 16 advisories in the middle school.
Students learn a lot about themselves during the election process. Officer candidates begin the process by writing an essay on different leadership topics, creating campaign posters, and giving a speech in front of the entire middle school. The Trinity Student Council supports the school by planning and setting up for student events such as dances, creating and facilitating community service opportunities, running the weekly middle school assemblies, and in various other ways. The Student Council President also has the opportunity to address the Trinity community during the graduation service.
Middle School Advisory Program
At Trinity Episcopal School, we pride ourselves in having a strong mission-based advisory program. The main objective is to help carry out Trinity’s mission: to nurture each child intellectually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We will honor each child's spirit for learning and life, ever mindful that we are all children of God.
The Trinity Advisory program provides students with a reliable, steady, systematic source of supportive, nurturing, personalized attention and one caring adult who really knows the student and helps nurture the student. The advisor is the main contact at Trinity for students' parents because the advisory teacher has the big picture on each student. It is their job to keep track of and support their advisees. Middle School teachers have a maximum of 13 advisees per year.
