Cross-Grade Collaboration Opens New Development Opportunities

At Bennett Day, we pride ourselves on our close-knit community, developing lifelong learners and leaders across all grade levels. One way we encourage this growth is through cross-grade collaboration, which opens up new opportunities and avenues of thought, while fostering social and emotional learning.

Cross-grade collaboration gives students the chance to interact with older children at Bennett Day. It provides an opportunity to practice growing literacy skills with a peer who was once where they are now. This helps all students involved build confidence in their budding literacy abilities and gives them new resources in their environment to practice and share.

As a student progresses through the grades, so will their collaborative program. For example, third grade works on what is means to be a leader and a role model. The students talk about how it feels to be looked up to, and how they can set a good example for their younger peers by modeling such attributes as growth, mindset and perseverance. As an academic exercise, third grade students learn to identify the problem, solution, character and settings of stories, and then share their findings with a younger student. They become “experts,” and learn how to embody this new-found role.

Cross-grade collaboration is also prevalent in the SK (senior kindergarten) “reading buddies” program. This offers SK students an opportunity to learn from an older student, creating a role model outside of teachers and parents. It helps the children learn from and build friendships with students who were previously in their shoes.

Click here to learn more about how Bennett Day fosters a strong sense of community among students and parents alike.