King School

King School is a highly selective, PreKindergarten-Grade 12 co-ed, independent day school. We believe academic excellence stems from the interaction among a challenging program that requires students to be engaged, active learners; support by exceptional faculty; and a kind community. Our students are empowered to achieve their personal best. King graduates succeed in the top colleges and universities and pursue lives of ongoing inquiry and accomplishment.

Our great strength is that we are able to inspire students to achieve their personal best by helping them discover and build on their own unique strengths. Our faculty know each of our students at an extraordinary level of detail, and partner with students and parents to create the best possible learning experience for every student at King. Over 87% of Faculty hold advanced degrees; they are experts in their subject matter and in understanding how children learn. Our Trustees are committed to quality strategic planning that ensures the future development and strength.

King is dedicated to preparing its students to thrive in a rapidly changing world. We provide an excellent, progressive education, grounded in the traditional disciplines of the arts and sciences, committed to the nurturing of individual potential, and designed to promote critical thinking and reasoned reflection. Using rich and innovative methods, our Teachers facilitate each student’s fullest academic and personal achievement. We champion the development of character, self-confidence, and talent through challenging intellectual, creative, athletic, leadership, and service opportunities.

King believes that individual accomplishment must go hand in hand with respect for others. Our culture of respect fosters collaboration as well as independence. We embrace human and cultural diversity. We value responsible citizenship. King graduates are well equipped to succeed in college and to pursue lives of ongoing inquiry, learning, accomplishment, personal fulfillment and social responsibility.

Students at King are actively engaged in their own learning. Teachers set challenging expectations for students and provide them with the tools they need to achieve their personal best. The activities and interactions that define the King educational program help students cultivate intellectual ability, hone communication skills, build individual character, and achieve personal growth. The curricular goal of the School is to maximize each student’s development within these four domains. The King community prioritizes kindness and respect. Challenge and healthy competition enable students to explore, take risks, and succeed.

At King School, we know each student well, both as a person and as a learner. We believe knowing students well is crucial to academic excellence because students who feel noticed, known, validated, and valued as individuals are more likely to engage fully and even joyfully in the challenges of learning with resilience and success. They are more likely to feel safe and take the intellectual, developmental, and emotional risks needed to enable growth.

Our teachers know the power of knowing each of their students as an individual -- using their students' interests, learning patterns, and personal goals as part of lesson planning, course selections, and activities outside the classroom -- all directed towards creating a challenging experience for each learner. This approach to teaching and learning allows students to reach their personal best.

King fosters creative and intellectual development through a skills-based content-embedded approach to teaching reading, writing, thinking, and speaking, PreK-Grade 12, in a sequence that strengthens student expertise and allows for group and individual instruction. Elementary, middle, and high school students learn how to read carefully, write clearly, think critically, and communicate their ideas with peers. Students tackle challenging texts in English, History, Science, Social Sciences, and World Languages, and learn how to conduct thoughtful research in order to develop a claim (thesis) and support an argument. We emphasize the importance of cultural, contextual, and technical aspects of written expression, and we equip students with a set of tools enabling them to read, think, write, and speak about a text on personal, communal, and global levels.

King students explore literary composition and nonfiction writing outside of the classroom. Students attend The Dodge Poetry Festival and submit creative work to competitions, including The Stamford Literary Competition. We are a community of writers and all students can publish their work. Students submit poems to the Lower School’s poetry anthology; short stories to the Upper School creative magazine, Ink; and articles to the Yearbook.

At King School, educating our youth to become future global leaders is at the forefront of our curricular mission to prepare students to thrive in a rapidly changing world. King Global Education, a comprehensive program woven into the PreK-Grade 12 curriculum, develops students knowledge of the world cultural diversity within the context of globalization and change. By fostering in students an educated awareness of our increasingly interdependent world, King prepares students to recognize the need for their active participation in ethical, cultural, socioeconomic, political, scientific, and environmental issues.