Shark Week Summer Academic Program

Shark Week is NPES’ summer project-based academic program running during the first full week of August. Open to NPES students entering junior kindergarten through eighth grade, our outstanding faculty work with students grouped by proximate ages to refresh and sharpen key academic skills prior to the start of the year while reinforcing the school’s philosophy that learning and growth can be engaging, challenging, expansive, and joyful endeavors–and that when they are, students thrive. Shark Week is skills-rich, challenging, and fun.

In our most recent Shark Week student groups functioned as museum departments, managing every aspect of launching and operating a museum about Changemakers, opening their on-campus museum to the public as the culminating experience Friday afternoon. Students ages four to fourteen researched and curated exhibits and art, prepared homemade snacks and opened a museum cafe, created items for the gift shop in the school’s innovation lab, and staffed the museum for two hours. In this work, they practiced communication skills, collaboration, innovation, questioning, research, writing, public speaking, creative problem solving, listening for understanding, negotiation, executive functioning, budgeting, the application of current technology, adaptability, and resilience. While the specific project varies from year to year, this is what Shark Week is all about.