Nestled in the heart of Sun City, El Paso, The Cherry Hill School stands as the only Jewish institution for grades 1-8, dedicated to enriching the lives of both Jewish and non-Jewish students alike. Our mission is to provide a nurturing environment that not only emphasizes academic excellence but also fosters a deep understanding of Jewish culture and ethical teachings.
At The Cherry Hill School, all of our practices are grounded in Constructivism. Constructivism holds that:
Our classrooms are warm and home-like with natural elements, designed to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. You will not find rows of desks at The Cherry Hill school! Instead, soft elements and varied group seating arrangements allows students ownership of their own bodies and provides different configurations for self-directed engagement with others. Our classrooms and instructional practices emphasize Arts integration across subject areas with interesting materials available to provoke children to explore and express themselves in varied and new ways. Our teachers utilize pedagogical documentation, a naturalistic way of observation, combined with traditional methods, to provide holistic assessment of student progress.
Our interactions with students assume that everyone has talent and something to contribute through active engagement with materials, ideas and people. Teachers act as facilitators, meeting students “where they are” socially and academically and provide support to help students meet grade-level learning goals as well as their unique potential. Instructional experiences position teachers and student as co-meaning makers; they are designed to nurture curiosity and confidence in thinking independently and creatively, as well as to foster working respectfully and collaboratively with others in a culture of care.
Students engage in project work (independently and/or collaboratively) every day at The Cherry Hill School. This allows them to authentically integrate knowledge across subject areas and practice newly learned knowledge and skills by working for extended periods of time to investigate engaging and complex questions, problems or challenges through the creation of solutions and tangible objects. During projects, student integrate various forms of technology as they pursue solutions to real-world problems by asking and refining questions, debating ideas, making predictions, designing plans and/or experiments, collecting and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, communicating their ideas and findings to others, and creating artifacts. Through a combination of hands-on discovery and practice, students create a public product or presentation of their project that is shared with the school community. The project work we engage in not only promotes long-term academic subject knowledge retention, but it provides a means of practicing important 21st century skills– critical and creative thinking, collaboration, information literacy, and confident communication.