Curriculum

At Bayside Academy, curiosity is cultivated from a student’s earliest days.  Our youngest learners are encouraged to notice, wonder, ask questions, and allow those questions to guide discovery. Beginning in the Early School, Bayside students are exposed to the Reggio Emilia approach to learning, which was developed in Italy and is based upon the principles that children should have a voice regarding the direction of their learning; should be able to learn through experiences of touching, moving, listening, and observing; should be allowed to explore their relationships with other children and with material items in the world; and should have endless ways and opportunities to express themselves. 

In the Upper School's Senior Capstone course, that same spirit of inquiry comes full circle. This year-long experience invites every senior to pursue a question, problem, or area of genuine personal interest through sustained research and an independent project of their own design.  Students learn to move from curiosity to action: asking meaningful questions, evaluating sources, setting goals and benchmarks, seeking feedback and expertise from others, persisting through challenges, and ultimately presenting their work with confidence and integrity.

Interwoven throughout the course is the study of philosophy, challenging students to consider not only what they choose to pursue, but why. Through questions of knowledge, ethics, identity, and aesthetics, students wrestle with two essential questions: Why be moral? Why be excellent?

Capstone represents much of what we hope to cultivate in a Bayside graduate: curiosity, creativity, ethical decision-making, self-discipline, intellectual independence, and the confidence to turn ideas into meaningful action. It is more than a graduation requirement; it is a culminating experience designed to prepare students for what comes next—when the questions are increasingly their own, and so are the choices they make in answering them.