Academics

A KUA Education

Find the Joy in Learning

Kimball Union provides a robust education that honors the individual student as an essential part of the greater community. We invest in each student’s future by understanding who they are. We ask students to learn about themselves. Then as partners, we figure out who they will become – as students and as human beings – as they prepare for the next steps on their journey.

KUA Design: Our Approach to Learning

Your unique experiences, interests, and abilities influence the way you learn and engage in the world, and tell us how best to support and inspire you. That’s why, from the day you arrive at KUA, it’s our mission to learn about you.

KUA Design is the philosophy we apply across all our educational experiences. It provides a framework for teachers that guides their professional growth and engagement so that they can deliver what every student deserves – a robust learning environment focused on academic skill development, social-emotional growth, wellbeing, positive relationships, and independence that improves their lives in high school and beyond.

Our goal is for faculty to use science-informed, usable knowledge that they can implement alongside their teaching expertise to guide their work with students and create the best possible environment for holistic adolescent growth.

The Framework
Today it is understood that the teenage brain is developing, adaptable, experience-dependent, and social in nature; as such our teaching, coaching, and learning strategies are informed by four key principles that the teenage brain needs for optimal learning and growth:
 
The Science of Relationships: Positive relationships are foundational to learning because they motivate healthy connections and growth.

The Science of Individuality: All brains are unique and draw from their individual abilities and experiences.

The Science of Learning: Memory, attention, assessment, and feedback are essential to the learning process.

The Science of Wellbeing: Emotion, cognition, and physical wellbeing are interlinked.
 
Why this Matters
The teenage brain is far from set, and it can change and adapt to experiences it encounters. This makes high school a critical time for intellectual, social, emotional, and physical development. The boarding school environment is an exceptional setting for putting neuroscience into practice, not just in the classroom but throughout a student’s full life experience.

Students are guided at every turn by faculty, coaches, and advisors who are not only highly invested in student success but are also trained in research-informed best practices for teaching and learning. As a result, students see that education can feel rewarding, satisfying, appropriately challenging - and fun.
 
 

Take a Deeper Dive

KUA Design Review is published by Kimball Union Academy and reflects the ongoing work of faculty to further their practices inside and outside the classroom using science-informed practices. Read more in our inaugural issue.



7 Campus Center Drive
Meriden NH, 03770
phone: (603) 469-2000
info@kua.org