Boarding school with Hands on learning

Looking of a school for my son. Going into 9th, he is gifted, doesn’t do well in traditional learning style, needs project based learning and STEM. But needs sports (Lacrosse) and school can’t be too small, he is very social.

Guessing you would like Putney, but bigger and with lax?

What type of projects ?

Academic projects or life skills projects ?

Robotics ?

Caring for animals or farming ?

What do you mean by “gifted” ?

Small schools can be & usually are very social. Does he need a large school in order to associate with a specialized interest or a certain type of friends ?

Are you interested in large schools because you think that a large school environment is less likely to be cliquish ?

Define “too small”.

The type of school you’re describing usually has small #s in an actual classroom. Like, 15 or less unless it’s team taught.

Outside of the classroom, how many hundreds of people does your son really need on campus to keep him happy?

Explore different pedagogical theories and then look at the schools that fit that.

For example:
Waldorf schools like High Mowing (120) - their program looks interesting, they don’t use textbooks, but I’d agree it’s a tad small. Tiny endowment.

Progressive schools (anything inspired by John Dewey): see Putney (238). (Slightly larger than Putney is the Cambridge School of Weston (300), but they don’t have boys lacrosse.)

Multiple Intelligences: the theory of multiple intelligences guiding the classroom. Personally have only heard of Chapel Hill Chauncy Hall - was talking to the in-law of a teacher there today. They’re trying to improve. (It used to use IQ tests for admissions.) It is small. Tiny endowment.

This is not meant to be exhaustive, just a start.

What do you mean by too small? Most BS are about 100 kids give or take 50. The larger ones are only 300 per grade. Not that big.

Also, many kids at BS are gifted in the sense of taking tests and being highly ranked. That doesn’t mean that some kids who attend aren’t also adding to the community in other ways such as athletics, philanthropy, music etc. Would be great to know if your kid is gifted in the sense of test taking or in some other way.

I think “gifted” kids learn in different ways. Some would not like Putney. Others might.
We did find that most BS taught in small groups ( collaborative and project based was common) but not in every respect. My kids are both successful test takers but looked at what they wanted a bit differently. They both wanted a faster pace and more depth in classes than they could get at the local public school. They didn’t want excessive group projects (where they often found themselves doing most of the work). But they did find at BS that there are so many gifted kids there is no issue finding other like minds who want to do the same level work.

Putney is too progressive for him.
He thrives in integrated learning like STEM but also in the Humanities. Where history and english are integrated with reading material and essay would pertain to history topic.

@Happytimes2001 Thank you for your response. I meant my son is academically gifted. does not need to put in much effort to receive good grades.
I also didn’t mean to sound as though I am only looking for school with gifted students, sorry if I came across that way.
He doesn’t do well in traditional learning environment (lecture, notes study test) During his elementary schools years he attended a true PBL program, best experience for him. Harder to find in HS.

I haven’t found boarding schools as few as 100 students, however with small student body, sports tend to be an issue. Why Putney wouldnt work, and too progressive.

@stalecookies thank you so much for your response.
I was thinking student body min. 500.
I will take a look a the ones you mentioned. thank you so much

This is exactly Hotchkiss’ program for the 1st 2 years – where the History, English, philosophy and arts classes are all integrated. So, e.g. they all might focus on a different aspect of Renaissance Europe at the same time. I wouldn’t characterize the teaching method as different from other boarding schools, but there are no lectures, it is all Harkness style round table discussions.

The humanities program at HK is just dreamy.

SPS also seemed to have integrated humanities program that appealed to me. But HK seemed to be very driven by life’s big questions (which are painted on the school hallway), which I loved.
That said, I would not say, from my limited view of having toured at 16 schools, that HK seemed “more hands-on” than other BS. I can’t think of a BS I visited that didn’t do more discussion-based, Harkness style, classes. So I’m guessing you are looking for something “more hands-on” than a “discussion-based-non-lecture” class. (Because that’s available pretty much everywhere I’ve visited.)

Not sure you are going to find something truly revolutionarily-hands-on in a larger boarding school (over 500). That said, compared to public school, it will be very “hands-on” and discussion-based. What are your thoughts so far on the schools you have been researching that are over 500 kids? There aren’t that many of them so I think you can narrow your list pretty quickly.

@Moody Monday For size, the 100 was per grade ( not the entire school). It was unclear from what I had written.