Class Performances

To help students develop self-confidence and poise in front of a group, each year every student has at least two "on-stage" experiences - the Holiday program in December and a class performance in the spring. Most classes present a play, a musical revue, or a series of short sketches to the rest of the school community during the weekly assembly time.

Lower School students often perform plays that they have written themselves. In lieu of a play the fifth graders traditionally present a History Fair, for which each student researches an important character from American History, then develops a display table of information and personally portrays that character in costume. Sixth graders, who receive their own laptops at the start of the year, typically develop an "i-Movie" as their class presentation. The eighth grade performs a longer, three-act play, typically including a complicated set, where students can apply their many years of accumulated shop skills.

The eighth grade students also prepare for a culminating performance out of school at the Mini-Model Congress held in the Trenton Statehouse each spring. Students debate the pros and cons of bills that they have drafted in Committees and a General Assembly comprised of teams from schools throughout New Jersey. While most schools send representatives from their gifted and talented programs, our entire eighth grade class participates, regularly earning awards both for debating and for bill writing.