Elgin Academy

Elgin Academy is the Fox River Valley’s preschool through grade 12 independent school where taking learning personally shapes every school day, every interaction, and every learning moment between your child and his peers and teachers. At Elgin Academy, taking learning personally means:

• Classrooms characterized by open conversation and probing dialogue because intellectual discourse lays the foundation for a lifetime of critical thinking.
• Active learning projects in every subject and every division, because proving knowledge through kinetic applications cements concepts for life.
• Mutually empowering relationships between fellow students and students and teachers, because learning breakthroughs accelerate within a culture of trust, respect, and compassion.
• At Elgin Academy, taking learning personally defines our commitment— to each other, and to every child who finds her second home on our campus.
• And it stands as your child’s abiding gift as she continues to hone her understanding of world and self through her time here, well into college, and long after graduation.

These pages are meant to highlight the various ways in which we take learning personally-- the hallmark of the Elgin Academy experience and the ultimate effect of the deep relationships that flourish in our close-knit environment. It is these relationships that form the foundation of the engaged learning that can only happen in a challenging and supportive environment geared toward understanding and encouraging the best in each student. Throughout this site, you will see myriad examples of the active learning that takes place in our classrooms, on our fields and courts, and in our art spaces.

While these pages paint a moving portrait, there is truly no substitute for participating in person. There are unlimited opportunities here, and we look forward to helping you explore the ways that your desire for the best education fits with our personal approach. Make an appointment with our admissions office today.

Here, taking learning personally is more than a credo—it defines our promise to each and every student and family who calls EA home. Our classes remain small to ensure we know, listen, and respond to the voice of every child. Instead of finding cracks to fall through, our students cement relationships that build character, bravery, discipline, and trust over their time here.

We help each student discover and pursue her emerging passions and interests—which can run the gamut from environmental science to social justice, international relations to sports medicine to videography— and our teachers, who know her exceedingly well, also know just how to inspire her to new heights. We closely follow—and, when needed, guide—her amazing progression from curious, wide-eyed preschooler to poised, articulate senior ready to make her mark on the world.

Not that long ago, school mostly meant a teacher passing down facts and information to students in rows. Today, when the internet makes every fact, from state capitals to the dates of the Chinese Revolution just a click away, how should a school respond?

At Elgin Academy, we make learning active. Our teachers count on our students to not just know the content but to work with it, apply it, test it, and ultimately build upon it. That’s why you see project-based learning at every level of our school, and why our students don’t live in an ivory tower but take their learning out into the world.

We believe projects and demonstrations become the best way not just to prove knowledge, but to trigger nuanced application. To innovate. And to anticipate the next question far in advance. That’s how we prepare students for the evolving world they’re about to inherit.