Curriculum

Tesseract’s upper school curriculum has been designed to give students the skills and knowledge they need for success in college and beyond in an innovative setting that emphasizes authentic learning, cross-curricular connections and international exposure. Upper school students will be expected to complete four years of English/composition and mathematics, and three years of science, history and foreign language.  Freshmen will also be expected to participate in the school’s arts and physical education classes. For more information, please view the ninth-grade curriculum, four-year curriculum plan and upper school credits. 

• Ninth-Grade Curriculum
• Four-Year Curriculum
• Upper School Credits

Progress and Feedback

At Tesseract, we recognize that learning requires feedback, but we also believe that grades should be seen as gauges for student progress rather than as ends in themselves. Our upper school report cards, student reports, conferences, student portfolios, and student presentations have all been carefully designed to reinforce this philosophy. For each assessment procedure, our emphasis is on student involvement/individual ownership.

Our distinctive Portfolio-Presentation assessments emphasize self assessment, giving students an opportunity to synthesize their learning, thinking, progress, and insights between disciplines and over time.  Students also need to feel comfortable and confident with a more traditional exam format setting, and for this reason, student progress over the first and third trimesters is gauged using a more traditional exam format to prepare students for standardized tests such as the SAT.