Supported by decades of educational and neuroscience research, The Cherry Hill School’s educational philosophy reflects a unique combination of complementary constructivist approaches (including Reggio-Inspired Practices, the Developmental Interaction Approach, and Project-based Learning) that positions children as talented and capable. Central to our belief is that students learn best when they are actively engaged with materials, ideas, and people, and that long-term growth requires culturally sustaining opportunities to build individual and communal understanding.

We are fully committed to nurturing social-emotional development because this is directly tied to and supports the development of academic identity and capacity, as well as providing the foundation for learning how to make good life choices for self and others. To this end, instructional practices that focus on individual ownership of the learning process, comparison of ideas and co-participation/collaboration are utilized daily to nurture self-awareness, responsibility and empathy in students.

We also acknowledge that cognitive development includes both academic growth, which is specific knowledge and skills in subject areas such as literacy and multi-language learning, mathematics, science, social studies, fine arts and technology, and intellectual growth, which is a broader capacity for creative thinking and problem-solving that is critical for exploring, reasoning about, and more widely understanding physical, social, aesthetic and spiritual aspects of the world.  At The Cherry Hill School, we intentionally focus on the building of both types of cognitive development across the curriculum as the basis for lifelong learning and success.