Two Mooreland Hill students appear in the Southington Observer following the production of Guys & Dolls at our December 16 Fine Arts Evening.

Mooreland Hill School is happy to announce that it is adding a Kindergarten to Grade 3 Lower School to complement its existing Grade 4 to Grade 9 program. The expansion into the lower grades will enable the school to provide an exceptional, all-inclusive elementary and middle school program. The Board of Trustees and Founders approved the expansion at a special meeting held on Tuesday, November 29. Planning for the expansion kicked into high gear immediately thereafter.

The Lower School program will be offered in a mixed-age group configuration consistent with the existing Grades 4/5 Multi-Age Group (MAG) grouping. The new Lower School will be housed in Founders Hall in four classrooms: K/1, 2/3, and 4/5 MAG classrooms. In January, 2012, a lower school model classroom will be designed for tours.

The school has hired two consultants who will be working with the faculty and administration to design an academic program. The consultants will also be instrumental in the hiring process. Peggy Chappell has years of experience as a lower school teacher, Lower School Division Director, Director of Admissions, and School Social Worker. Peggy is currently on the Mooreland Hill School Board of Trustees. Peggy Phillips is a thirty-year veteran Kindergarten teacher who is now consulting. She is a tremendous resource for Kindergarten organization and planning.

In the coming weeks and months, our consultants and administrators look forward to meeting with current Mooreland Hill School and prospective Lower School parents at various events. Please keep checking back for updates about this exciting new venture.

Lower School Program Overview

The Best Place to Raise  Kids in Connecticut: Kensington

Bloomburg Businessweek mentions Mooreland Hill School when identifying Kensington as the best place to raise kids in Connecticut. Read more here…

Marc Davis ’82, wins U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Art Competition –  as featured in the Dublin Patch, November 10, 2011

“Marc Davis has won this year’s U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree art competition with “Granite Ablaze,” a beautiful winter sunrise photograph of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park….Davis traces his passion for photography to Mooreland Hill School in Kensington, Conn., where he was a student from 6th to 9th grade. “I was extremely fortunate to have a teacher with a photography hobby, and was therefore able to develop and print in a darkroom at school. With his encouragement and direction, I fell in love with photography as art, and that passion burns stronger than ever today, three decades later,” he said. Read full story.

Alexander Martin ’01 – Article as it appears in Canoe & Kayak magazine, November 2, 2011:

Just over a year ago, the 25-year-old NOLS instructor from Kensington, Connecticut completed the first, modern-day canoe expedition across America—a 4,300-mile solo journey from Portland to Portland, Oregon to Maine, that is. 2011 presents a new year for “Zand” and with it, a new continent to paddle across. Martin explains: “The Trans-Europa Canoe Expedition will follow the waterways of history across Europe; the route will take us west to east from the Atlantic Coast of France at Nantes, up the Loire River, through French canals to the Rhine River, over the mountains of the Black Forest to the source of the Danube River, and down the Danube to the Black Sea. The route, from Nantes to Istanbul, is more than 4,000 kilometers long and will take place between September and December, totally roughly 100 days.”

Making a beeline for Budapest, hoping to make it before the harsh eastern European winter sets in, Martin sent in this correspondence giving us the lowdown through Kilometer 1100, Donau (Danube) River, Tuttlingen, Germany. Stay tuned to Canoekayak.com, where Martin will be recounting the epic journey in a series of exclusive En Route dispatches. CLICK HERE to see No. 1.