Curriculum Overview
Art
Chapel
Drama
Educational Technology Overview
English/Language Arts/Reading
Experiential Education
Family Life Education
Foreign Language
Library
Mathematics
Music
Physical Education
Science
Social Studies and History
Study Skills
Values and Character Education
Writing
Overview of Seventh and Eighth Grades
Advisory, Clubs and Intersession
Community Service Overview
Student Life
Parents at Norwood
Curriculum Matrix
Art
Every student at Norwood knows that art is for everyone, not just a talented few. Through artistic expression, each student can experience the delight, wonder, and self-assurance that come with creative accomplishment. Creative thinking and problem solving are attributes that enhance learning in all subject areas, and the visual arts experience at Norwood is an essential part of the curriculum. Norwood provides a solid foundation so that each child has the confidence and curiosity to create and appreciate art.
Student art is a vibrant presence at Norwood. The children’s creative work adorns classrooms, hallways, and offices throughout the school. The spacious and beautiful Murray Arts Building and two large, sunlight-filled Middle School art rooms leave no question about the importance of art in the life of the School. Everywhere the wonder and vitality of the child is revealed.
The art curriculum is a sequential and cumulative program of skills and concepts where students explore and produce works of art in the following disciplines: drawing, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, painting, mixed media, digital photography, and computer graphics. The program strives to enable students to use experience, observation, and imagination to create works of personal significance within the broad guidelines of structured lessons. Projects encourage growth in self-discipline, perseverance, expansive thinking, and the collaborative spirit, which are important in art and in daily life. By coordinating their hands, minds, and hearts in exploration of the artistic world, students come to know how art enriches life.
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Chapel
Norwood’s commitment to its students’ moral and spiritual development is rooted in the vision of founder Frances Marsh. That commitment was consistent with the School’s first 18 years as the parish school for St. John’s Episcopal Church, Norwood Parish, in Bethesda. When the School separated from the Church in 1970 to expand and move to a new location, it became Norwood School and was thereafter no longer affiliated with any religious organization.
Norwood has over the years become a school community of many faiths as well as many denominations. Our chapel traditions stem from our Episcopal beginnings. Each day begins with a chapel service. Monday through Thursday the lower and middle schoolers customarily gather in separate locations; on Friday the entire school comes together in the Marsh gymnasium. It was the expressed wish of Frances Marsh that the School would always start the day saying and meaning: “This is the day the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). The order of service also includes the Lord’s Prayer. Chapel reflects the School’s commitment to values common to many religious and philosophical traditions: faith in God, belief in family, respect for others, integrity, responsibility, self-discipline, compassion, and service. The intention is to bring the ideas and values introduced by meaningful stories to the students’ level of understanding so that they can think about and learn from the moral messages provided.
Norwood holds firmly to the belief that religious traditions, songs, stories, and rituals make the life of the spirit real to its students and contribute to the growth of each child’s spiritual self. It is Norwood’s goal to be a school that seeks and celebrates the best of the human spirit while acknowledging that which is of God in all of us.
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Drama
Annual class programs and the Christmas Pageant offer our students many opportunities for performing. Norwood has a tradition of integrating the arts with other classroom learning by developing musical presentations based on history, poetry, nature, and the cultures of specific countries. Musical presentations provide opportunities for children to develop self-confidence and are an exciting way to enhance learning.
Drama in the Middle School serves to awaken imagination and creativity, to promote teamwork and problem solving skills and to nurture self-confidence in its participants. Through a combination of classroom instruction and a variety of performing opportunities, every student learns the foundations of acting, theater history, and production, while developing important life skills and traits.
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Educational Technology Overview
Norwood is committed to the use of educational technology as a means of extending and enriching teaching and learning. Students progress toward greater mastery and meaningful application of information and media technologies. Such technologies include electronic research and communication, editing and publishing, multimedia authoring, and graphic design. Teachers and students use digital still and video cameras, digital microscopes, presentation cameras and projectors, scanners, and CD-burners. Classes use a wide array of educational software and Internet resources. To see examples of projects, please click here.
The Middle School building was designed so that technology can be effectively integrated into the curriculum and used directly in the classroom. In addition to the impressive array of educational technology resources available to students, each Norwood faculty member has a laptop provided by the school for his or her use at home and in the classroom.
The backbone of the School's technology infrastructure is a schoolwide computer network, the NorwoodNet. Internet access and other network services are available on all of the School's over 400 computers. In addition, Norwood hosts its own web site that serves as a communication link and information resource to parents, students, and teachers. To learn more about educational technology at Norwood, please visit our web site at: www.norwoodschool.org The web site is designed as a resource for parents, students, and faculty and has a wealth of information: the school calendar, homework for fifth through eighth grades, class pages for each grade, research and reference links, lunch menus, athletic scores and schedules, Parents Association information, and letters from the Head of School.
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English/Language Arts/Reading
Through the language arts curriculum, students learn both oral and written communication skills at an age-appropriate level. Across the grades, oral language abilities are developed by reading aloud, listening to others read, and giving oral presentations of many kinds. Encouraged to appreciate and enjoy writing, the children are guided through successive structural and grammatical skills to develop clear, forceful, expository writing and effective, satisfying, creative expression. Mechanics, usage, and spelling skills are taught and used in conjunction with the editing function of the writing process. In the elementary grades, the elements of English grammar are introduced to facilitate a greater understanding of our language and its patterns. Research skills used to prepare increasingly sophisticated expository reports are gradually introduced and strengthened.
The seventh and eighth grade English literature program, as part of the Twentieth Century focus of the Middle School curriculum, introduces students to great and diverse contemporary writers for young adults. Writing assignments range from informal essays and creative writing to formal literary critical analysis. Students explore the logic of the English language and build on their knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, style, and usage. Formal instruction in these topics supplements the literature and writing portions of the curriculum and buttresses the students as they engage both with their own material and the work of some of this century’s finest writers.
Reading enriches the mind and nourishes the soul. Through reading students learn of the infinite variety of life. They are encouraged to connect their reading with personal experience, make inferences, and think critically. At all grade levels, reading of good literature is stressed. Books are chosen for the quality of their writing and content, often in relation to other areas of the curriculum. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama are all part of the wide range of materials that make up Norwood’s reading program. Included in these are a limited number of reading books, “core books,” which are a permanent part of each grade’s literature curriculum. Chosen for their lasting merit, these books become a common experience of every Norwood student and a basis for reference and comparison throughout the grades.
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Experiential Education
As part of the educational program, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade students participate in overnight camping trips. These trips are led by teachers. The dates of these overnight trips are included on the master calendar. Trip details will be provided by the homeroom teachers in a timely manner. Eighth graders participate in a culminating trip to New York City.
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Through the Family Life Education (FLE) program, Norwood students are encouraged to develop wholesome attitudes regarding all stages of human growth and development. Family Life Education centers around the individual and encourages self- knowledge and a positive self-image. Since the family is crucial to early human development, students explore the diversity of family structures and experience. The program is designed to encourage discussion at home as well as at school.
There are five areas of concentration which students study at each grade level: family life, human growth and development, reproduction, communication, and health and safety. Kindergartners and first graders study the family unit, animal reproduction, and how to get help when one needs it. Second graders continue each of these studies, while concentrating on friendships and how they work, as well as human growth and development. Preliminary lessons are given on substance abuse, and decision-making.
In the third grade FLE program, students focus on themselves as distinct individuals with specific opinions, tastes, strengths, and weaknesses. The human life cycle from conception to death is discussed. Fourth graders move from an examination of their own emotions and learning styles to the problems and skills of friendship. Puberty, with its physical and emotional changes, is discussed. Drug and alcohol education is also part of the curriculum.
The Middle School FLE program shares the same philosophy as our Lower School program: students need to know about the changes and issues which they confront every day, and they need straightforward and accurate answers to their questions. Again, Norwood holds parents as the initial and primary providers of family life information. The Middle School program looks to supplement parental teaching in an age-appropriate way and provide a comfortable atmosphere for discussion and questions. Puberty and sexuality, decision making (peer pressure and substance abuse), health, diet, dating, and friendships are among the issues discussed with these fifth through eighth graders. Outside speakers supplement classroom discussion on topics such as substance abuse.
By formally teaching human sexuality in the classroom, Norwood aims to prepare its children to face adolescence without the burdens of myths, misinformation, and unnecessary anxiety with which so many children have to deal. The ultimate goal is that the children at Norwood will have the necessary ethical and factual foundation to make responsible life decisions, understand and accept others, and enjoy a greater sense of self-worth.
Click Here for the Family Life Education Web Site (top)Foreign Language
The foreign language program offered at Norwood introduces students to a second language and a variety of different cultures. Beginning in second grade, students are offered a choice of either French or Spanish. Later, in the seventh and eighth grades, students may also choose to pursue Latin. By starting French or Spanish as early as Norwood students do, children quickly overcome any uncertainties about speaking a foreign language and rapidly acquire good pronounciation. Students are taught using an oral/aural approach, and classes are conducted almost entirely in the target language.
Songs, poems, rhymes, stories, games, and role playing are used to help students learn words and sentences. Starting in second grade, students become familiar with French and Spanish words by learning songs, poems and short role plays. By third grade, students are exposed to simple rules of French and Spanish grammar and spelling. They learn to associate sounds with the written language, which leads to reading. In the fourth grade, children are ready to use their knowledge of French and Spanish syntax to create sentences orally. In these early grades the foreign language program is designed to introduce written words only when the students understand them well, thus avoiding major mistakes of pronunciation. The Norwood Lower School foreign language program is built upon topics that are directly related to the children's ages and interests. Teaching materials and techniques include flash cards, pictures, music tapes, videos, books, plays, and toys. Elements of French and Spanish culture such as music, art, cuisine, and holidays are also covered.
In the early Middle School years, fifth and sixth grade students refine their existing skills, develop new ones, and broaden their knowledge of the language's motherland and culture. Foreign language instruction at this level fosters not only proficiency in the studied language, but also a greater understanding of the peoples of the world, and thus a nascent ability to analyze objectively one's own culture. The Middle School foreign language curriculum focuses on developing the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Believing that language is best learned by participating in meaningful exchange, instruction on all levels is designed to provide opportunities to use language in context. Communicative competence is the focus of instruction in French and Spanish while the study of Latin emphasizes reading, grammar, and the etymology of English words. All foreign languages at this level include study of the diverse cultures specific to that language: the Francophone world, Hispanic cultures, or Roman civilization.
Seventh and eighth grade course work is the equivalent of the first year of high school foreign language instruction. Students work from texts, workbooks, tapes, videos, and other materials. Activities include games, skits, films, popular music, dances, and stories, as well as collaborative projects and pen-pal exchanges.
(top)Library
Norwood has both a lower and a middle school library. Both libraries are open during school hours to all students and families of Norwood School. Children are welcome to visit the library at any time during the school day with permission from their teacher. Students in kindergarten through fourth grade have an assigned library period once a week when they are introduced to the resources available to them in the library. Students listen to stories and learn about books they may enjoy on their own. They practice research skills and learn to navigate the library using the computerized cataloging system. Children have an opportunity to select and check out books for classroom studies or home reading. Third graders are taught research skills during the spring months in conjunction with their study of the United States.
Library classes in fifth and sixth grades are designed to complement classroom curricula with skills, stories, and activities. More advanced usage of the library's resources, particularly the reference collection, occurs in each grade. At the same time, there is an emphasis on sharing recreational or assigned reading through book talks given by the librarian and through informal book discussions with the students. Seventh and eighth graders use the library in conjunction with their classroom activities, for researching information, and for leisure reading. Students are encouraged to visit the library frequently and consult with the library faculty as their work and interests dictate.
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Mathematics
Numbers hold still, but the ways in which they are used certainly do not. Increasingly, students will need to rely on mathematics to investigate, conjecture, reason logically, solve problems, and communicate ideas - in short to see, analyze, and describe order in whatever part of the universe they confront. Norwood's mathematics curriculum helps students to become confident and successful problem solvers through experience with numbers, quantities, and measurement and to understand the connection between the analytical thinking used in quantitative problem solving and the structured problem solving approach used in other disciplines. Norwood appreciates and demonstrates for its students the ways in which computers and other technologies have dramatically increased our capacity for dealing with numbers. Norwood emphasizes individual development. Our small math sections encourage students to achieve at their highest level. Children are encouraged to explore and experiment with a full range of mathematical experiences and are presented with opportunities to do so in settings that are appropriate to their ages, their abilities, and their physical and cognitive development.
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Music
Norwood's music program is devoted to instilling a joyful sense of music in every child. It accomplishes this through a process which emphasizes creativity as well as musical literacy. Lower School students move to music, play melodic and rhythmic instruments, improvise and create their own melodies, and listen to a variety of folk, classical, jazz, and contemporary music. Annual class programs and the Christmas Pageant offer our students many opportunities for performing. Norwood has a tradition of integrating the arts with other classroom learning by developing musical presentations based on history, poetry, nature, and the cultures of specific countries. Musical presentations provide opportunities for children to develop self-confidence and are an exciting way to enhance learning. Performance continues to be an integral part of the Norwood music experience. Middle School students participate in the Winter and Spring Concerts; seventh and eighth graders put on a musical play each year.
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Physical Education
Norwood believes that regular physical activity for each child is an important part of its total program. The Physical Education curriculum supports that belief with activities that promote physical fitness, athletic competency, leadership, sportsmanship, and a lifelong commitment to healthful living.
Physical Education activities in kindergarten through second grade focus upon the individual development of each child. Students are introduced to a wide variety of fun and challenging lessons that emphasize basic movement concepts, hand-foot-eye coordination, and introductory athletic skills. Cooperative games introduce social skills that lay the foundation for successful teamwork and sportsmanship.
The Physical Education program for students in grades three through six offers a comprehensive sports curriculum that emphasizes physical fitness, athletic skills, teamwork, leadership and sportsmanship. Three-week units provide instruction in each of the core sports: soccer, field hockey, flag football, cross-country, basketball, volleyball, racquet sports, track and field, lacrosse and softball. Conditioning exercises are an integral part of every class, and students participate in the President's Challenge Physical Fitness Program each fall and spring.
The Norwood Middle School athletic program fosters the development of desirable learning habits, knowledge, skills, fair play, and commitment to a team. To give each child the opportunity to develop his or her abilities, the Middle School athletic teams maintain a "no-cut" policy.
All students in the fifth and sixth grades may participate in the School's athletic program. This athletic program takes place after the end of the academic day and is considered extra-curricular. Students continue to take Physical Education during the regular school day as a required course. Fifth and sixth graders compete against teams at their own introductory level, separate from the older middle school students.
In grades seven and eight, Norwood students may select the means by which they meet their academic requirement for Physical Education. Each season students choose one of the Varsity interscholastic sports offered by the Athletics Department or the Summit Program, an outdoor adventure/physical fitness course provided by the Physical Education Department.
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Science
The teaching and learning of science should stimulate and encourage children's sense of wonder and help them begin to understand the world in which they live. Students at Norwood develop a strong foundation in scientific literacy. Emphasis is placed on fundamental themes, skills, and attitudes of science. Teaching methods reflect the scientific endeavor, helping students to develop their own questions and search for their own answers in a creative, yet logical way. The goal of Norwood School's science curriculum is to encourage students to think of themselves as scientists and to expose them to a wide variety of fascinating scientific concepts and insights. Science classes at Norwood are kept small, and thus the natural curiosity of children is better celebrated, explored, and put to work. The School's well-equipped science labs are complemented by Norwood's forty-acre campus, which includes a variety of natural habitats.
Students in first through sixth grade begin the school year studying one science topic, the science theme of that year. Art, reading, and math classes often participate in the theme to add an interdisciplinary component. Topics have included deserts, extreme cold, nutrition, the Chesapeake Bay, and "Norwood Naturalists."
As an extracurricular activity, Norwood's Middle School students may join students in over 97 other countries by gathering environmental data and submitting this data to the GLOBE network via the World Wide Web. GLOBE is an international student-scientist partnership focused on improving knowledge about our world environment.
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Social Studies and History
Social studies at Norwood embraces all aspects of living and learning. History and geography are the core of the program while interdisciplinary enrichment is drawn from literature, writing, science, mathematics, music, drama, and art. Lower School grades generally emphasize contemporary issues, traditions, and cultures, while the more abstract, chronological approach, which defines formal history studies, is introduced gradually as the children mature. Outreach activities foster awareness of contemporary social issues and sensitivity to other values and cultures. Investigation and discussion of the present and of the past help the students understand both continuity and change in human experience and see themselves as inheritors and participants in this chronicle. The goal of the program is to enable the students to become knowledgeable, caring, and responsible members of society.
Biologist Stephen J. Gould said that most animal behaviorists would trade their life's work for ten minutes spent as the animal of their specialty, privy to that creature's thoughts, actions, impulses and sensations, provided of course they could in the end regain their human selves and communicate the experience. The study of history at Norwood involves in many ways the same quest. What was it like to be a Roman living in an outpost villa on the backwater island of Britania? What was it like come Michaelmas on a medieval feudal estate, one pig and two dozen eggs short of the rent? What was it like to fight for abolition in a country that still sanctioned slavery? What was it like?
Another major component of the history curriculum is the study of civics, current events, and government. Nowhere else in the nation are children in such an ideal proximity to local, state, and federal governments. Field trips and guest speakers are an integral part of the curriculum.
Throughout the year and at all grade levels the children use the resources available in our area from Gettysburg and Jamestown to the C. & O. Canal and the Chesapeake Bay. Classes visit museums, farms, archeological sites, the Washington Cathedral, and foreign embassies. Visiting speakers, dance groups, artists, and musicians enrich the program.
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Study Skills
In addition to encouraging creativity and varied interests in all of its students, Norwood recognizes the vital importance of basic study skills to success and enjoyment in all areas of learning.
In the Lower School, classroom procedures are designed to promote orderly interaction, clear thinking, and verbal expression. Children are encouraged to listen attentively, to follow oral directions, and to present their work in a neat and organized way. Students learn the routine of being accountable for brief assignments completed at home. As they move through the Lower School, children are given a weekly organizer in which they write all of their homework assignments and are assigned a multi-part, long-term project, designed to teach them the importance of budgeting their time.
Fourth grade and early Middle School, the fifth and sixth grades, are years of steadily increasing homework, long-term projects, and multi-part assignments. Students in these grades are given a plan book in which to keep an ongoing record of their responsibilities. Test taking, essay writing, and text reading skills are developed throughout the curriculum. Outlining, note taking, and the multistep process of writing a research paper are all taught and practiced so that by the end of sixth grade, students are able to work through a large research project, complete with end notes and bibliography.
In the seventh and eighth grades, the daily homework load again increases along with the depth and complexity of long term assignments. Students are expected to have command of the rudiments of organization discussed above and to be able to apply these strategies in an appropriate way to their work. Homework assignments will be available for middle school students through Norwood's website. Every seventh and eighth grader participates in weekly advising sessions. Individual learning styles, organization of time and materials, and preparation for taking standardized tests are some of the topics covered.
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Values and Character Education
Norwood's aim is to provide an environment in which important values are modeled by adults and openly acknowledged and supported by all throughout the school. Norwood believes that schools should work with parents in the development of a child's values. Teachers and administrators provide explicit and implicit values instruction during the morning chapel service and throughout the school day. Students are taught to be respectful and thoughtful of others and to celebrate diversity while understanding and appreciating the commonality that exists within the human family.
Norwood encourages children to be active and responsible members of the School community and to be honest and forthright in their interactions with both peers and adults. Both the Lower and Middle Schools offer many opportunities for leadership and character building. Projects, performances, presentations, activities, and athletic events give students the chance to organize, lead, and work cooperatively. Daily chapel for all and regular advisory meetings for seventh and eighth graders provide a forum for talk about moral and ethical issues. Norwood students are helped to develop a strong sense of self and self-worth and to set high standards for their own behavior. By openly supporting worthwhile values, Norwood fosters in its students a recognition of concerns beyond those that are immediate.
Ethics and life skills are the focus of a course for seventh and eighth graders in which students deal with real-life situations that encourage them to go beyond the simple differences between right and wrong. They discuss issues in small groups or with the whole class and try to both identify problems or topics and think through the possible consequences of decisions and choices.
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Writing
Norwood encourages its students to appreciate and enjoy writing. The children are guided through successive structural and grammatical skills to develop clear, forceful expository writing and effective, satisfying creative expression. The children hear and read masters of poetry, prose, and drama. The individual creativity of each child is celebrated in his or her development as a writer.
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Overview of Seventh and Eighth Grades
Building on the philosophical and curricular foundations of their earlier Norwood education, the seventh and eighth grade program brings the Norwood experience to children whose abilities, sensibilities, and thinking are moving toward adulthood. A vigorous, integrated program stimulates, challenges, and excites seventh and eighth graders but also offers a firm grounding in the fundamental academic skills which they will need in the future. While the fifth and sixth grade curriculum is an extension and intensification of the strands initiated in the Lower School years, the core of seventh and eighth grade study is a bit of a departure. Study is organized by a unifying theme: the Twentieth Century. All the main subjects throw light from different angles on this complex, kinetic, contested, and personally relevant period of history. The seventh and eighth grade program supports the developing minds and emotions of these older students in a variety of ways. Challenging, group-oriented, often technology-based, student projects take advantage of the desires of adolescents for intellectual stretching and social interaction. An excellent mathematics program, strong foreign language preparation, and daily classes in the arts serve the same goal. A regularly scheduled advisory system and our consulting psychologist offer opportunities for guidance. Student clubs and activities, an expanded interscholastic sports program, and an assortment of leadership and community service options encourage citizenship, responsibility, and the exploration of more individualized interests. Numerous excursions and projects which take advantage of the many resources in the Washington metropolitan area allow students to gain a broader view of the world in which they live. To culminate the eighth grade year, students visit New York City with its many sites which relate to their study of the Twentieth Century, such as Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, the New York Stock Exchange and the United Nations.
The seventh and eighth grade years are exciting and energizing as well as sometimes difficult and confusing. Students want to go beyond the comforts and confines of elementary school, but they are not yet ready for the greater choices and independence of high school. Norwood bridges the gap between the two, maintaining the stability and guidance of the elementary years while preparing students for future opportunities. The Middle School program addresses the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of its students as they follow the path from childhood to adolescence and beyond.
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Advisory, Clubs and Intersession
In seventh and eighth grade, two periods a week are devoted to advising. Also available to students is the opportunity to establish various clubs sponsored by faculty members. Study hall is also an option during this time.
The mission of Norwood School is "to assure that each of its children grows intellectually, morally, physically, and socially." The aim of the advisor/student advisory program is to guide middle school students towards greater selfawareness of their development in these areas and to support them in making their quest for independence a healthy and safe journey. Seventh and eighth grade teachers act as advisors advocating for the students: one adult responsible for knowing one student well, both academically and emotionally. Connections between the advisor and the advisee are made to provide safety, support, and encouragement. The advisor is the initial point of contact for the student, parent, and teacher in all areas of school life. During twice weekly scheduled advisory group meetings, more private one-onone meetings and informal interactions, advisors guide students through academic and social issues inherent both in and out of school. Students also eat lunch with their advisor and advisory group on a regular basis. The advisory program is not meant to act as a counseling program but does provide each student with regular, compassionate, and supportive guidance. Intersession is a four-day period between semesters in which students choose from a variety of activities, including a study of heart surgery, visits to interactive museums, creation of murals, sewing, funiture construction, and many more. Seventh and eighth grade faculty direct these activities, thus allowing for more informal, non-graded contact between adults and students.
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Community Service Overview
The Norwood School community service program provides an opportunity for children to reach out to the broader community with a caring spirit and an active willingness to serve. Compassion, sharing, responsibility, and respect for others are discussed in chapel and in class. Projects which carry the program from articulation to action provoke awareness of the myriad needs of others.
The School's community service projects are developed by two branches of the School community-parents and faculty. These two groups, under the organizing auspices of the Community Service Committee, explore opportunities in which unselfish actions and attitudes of acceptance can be practiced through a class project appropriate for each grade level. The primary grade children have worked on behalf of NIH's Children's Inn, Martha's Table, The Shower Ministry of St. Columba's Church, and the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
In the fall several grades glean fruit or vegetables under the direction of D.C. Gleaners, after which the food is delivered to a city soup kitchen. Smaller groups of older students visit regularly with early-Alzheimer's patients at a nearby nursing care facility as well as work at a school with developmentally disabled students. Children in the Middle School likewise take part in all school projects, such as collecting and distributing food for "New Pilgrims" at Thanksgiving. Seventh grade students rotate through five off-campus community service projects. Examples include Martha's Table, Soldiers' and Airmen's Home, Capital Area Food Bank, and Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary. Eighth grade students pick one project and devote all their community service mornings to that agency. Seventh and eighth graders are also given the opportunity to spend a weekend building homes for the Maryland Self-Help Housing Program. These more mature students also perform community service at school, working with younger children in an effort to preserve the beauty and cleanliness of their campus. The community service program seeks to establish in the school community a sense of civic responsibility rooted in the habit of service.
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Student Life
A variety of special activities, observations, and celebrations strengthen Norwood's sense of tradition and community. All students participate in four school-wide service projects. The Parents Association Community Service Committee directs these all-school projects.
Musical presentations based on history, literature, and/or science are a major part of each grade's year and give students opportunities to act, sing, dance, and recite. Each class presents its program for the parents and for the student body. Students in first through fourth grades participate in the annual Christmas Pageant, all Middle School students participate in the Winter and Spring Concerts, while the yearly Seventh and Eighth Grade Musical entertains the entire school community.
Numerous outside groups also come to Norwood to share their talents. From storytellers and puppeteers to illustrators and Native American dancers, creative individuals and groups are scheduled each year to share their talents, insights, and interests with Norwood students. Parents address classes on their careers or personal experiences, or lead after-school activities such as basketball, scouts, and soccer. A number of special days are celebrated during the year: Fathers Day, Mothers Day, and Grandparents Day are times when family members or special friends are invited to attend chapel and visit classes. On Field Day students participate in a series of creative sporting events. Founder's Day honors Norwood's founder, Frances Marsh, and celebrates the spirit and energy that created Norwood and permeate the life of the School today.
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Parents at Norwood
The Parents Association encourages volunteer support in many areas of the School and provides an excellent opportunity for parents to become involved. The Norwood Parents Association, a service organization comprised of all Norwood parents, plays an active role in the life of the School. The Association is led by an Executive Committee and supported by the dues paid by member families. The Association sponsors many school activities, handles the sale of special Norwood merchandise, and oversees the School's enrollment in a variety of Receipts for Education programs. Each year parents are instrumental in welcoming new families and leading the Annual Giving Fund drive. The objective is to raise funds for operational and instructional expenses not covered by tuition. Over the years Norwood has been most fortunate to have the strong financial support of current and former parents, as well as grandparents and friends of the School.
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Curriculum Matrix
Please click here for our 04-05 curriculum matrix (PDF format) which shows each subject at each grade level, or choose an area below for general information.