Stone Ridge Lower School Preview Book

Lower School at Stone Ridge

Inspiring a lifelong love of learning and giving.

Stone Ridge is the only school in the greater Washington area that brings together the Goals of Sacred Heart, all-girls education, and academic excellence for Grades 1-4.

At Stone Ridge, we encourage our girls to set high goals, and we provide the skills and support to advance them.

The girls gain confidence through steadfast effort, with faith—in God, self, and community—at the core of it all.

This is the magic of the five Goals of Sacred Heart education,

put into action.

Five Goals of Sacred Heart Education Goal I · A PERSONAL AND ACTIVE FAITH IN GOD Goal II · A DEEP RESPECT FOR INTELLECTUAL VALUES Goal III · A SOCIAL AWARENESS WHICH IMPELS TO ACTION Goal IV · THE BUILDING OF COMMUNITY AS A CHRISTIAN VALUE Goal V · PERSONAL GROWTH IN AN ATMOSPHERE OF WISE FREEDOM

Our Sacred Heart

Family

Founded in 1923 by the Society of the Sacred Heart, Stone Ridge is a member of the International Network of Sacred Heart Schools, with 25 schools and affiliates in the United States/Canada, and over 150 schools in 41 countries worldwide.

This sense of belonging to a worldwide network and mission is a richly powerful aspect of our identity.

The Goals and Criteria of Sacred Heart education defines the mission of Sacred Heart schools as part of the Society’s educational mission in the Catholic Church. This mission finds its source in the vision of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat who began her work as an educator in 1800 when she founded the Society in France.

A Global

Education

Stone Ridge attracts and reflects a dynamic international community, as a school that serves a diverse student body. Representing many cultures and ethnic groups from around the world, our students benefit from a global education first and foremost in the friendships they make while here.

In addition, our dynamic curriculum opens our students up to the world at large, preparing them for a world without borders. Our International Network of Sacred Heart Schools also allows Upper School students the chance to study at one of our sister schools on exchange.

BC

AB

WA MT

OR CA

ID

WY

NV UT

NM AZ Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart Bellevue, WA Schools of the Sacred Heart San Francisco, CA Sacred Heart Schools Atherton, CA Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart Houston, TX The Regis School Houston, TX Academy of the Sacred Heart New Orleans, LA Academy of the Sacred Heart Grand Coteau, LA

Network of Sacred Heart Schools in the United States and Canada Sacred Heart Schools in the United States and Canada SK

MB

NB

WI

SD

MI

IA

NE CO

MO

KS

IL

IN

OH

TX

LA

MS

AL

NH VT NY MA CT RI NJ DE MD

NC

TN

AR

PA

ME

WV VA

KY OK

QC

ON

MN

ND

NS

SC GA

Sacred Heart School of Montreal Montreal Sacred Heart School of Halifax Halifax Newton Country Day School Newton, MA St. Philomena School Portsmouth, RI Convent of the Sacred Heart Greenwich, CT Sprout Creek Farm Poughkeepsie, NY Convent of the Sacred Heart New York, NY Stuart Country Day School Princeton, NJ Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart Princeton, NJ

FL

Country Day School of the Sacred Heart Bryn Mawr, PA

Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart Omaha, NE

Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart Bethesda, MD

Academy of the Sacred Heart Bloomfield Hills, MI

Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart Miami, FL

Josephinum Academy Chicago, IL

Barat Academy Dardenne Prairie, MO

Sacred Heart Schools Chicago, IL

Academy of the Sacred Heart St. Charles, MO

Woodlands Academy Lake Forest, IL

Villa Duchesne/Oak Hill School St. Louis, MO

Network Schools Provisional Member Associated with the Network

A Network for a Lifetime As part of an international network of women, we know the significant impact women role models play in empowering girls; and we know the power in building a well-connected peer group over time. Stone Ridge girls and alumnae are part of a strong network, spanning the globe. This benefit has been transformational for their career and personal journeys.

Our youngest girls learn from their older female role models, who are both on campus as older students in our Middle and Upper School and off campus as our alumnae hosts and visitors. Our Sacred Heart network and sisterhood emphasizes the importance of learning how to work together, use their voices, and collaborate as essential lifelong skills.

“Coming to a Sacred Heart school, you have entered into a family and have come to a home...You come as you are and are cared for with great love.” — An excerpt from Life at the Sacred Heart

Goal 5

The Power of All-Girls

Stone Ridge offers an educational program designed to nurture and inspire girls to become confident and to develop their academic, artistic, athletic, spiritual, social, and emotional gifts and talents. Our all-girls environment allows even our youngest learners to grow as purposeful, self-directed students who are intent on developing their unique gifts. Stone Ridge girls are provided a host of avenues for self-exploration and leadership. Each child takes pride in her own accomplishments and those of her peers; together, each child forms strong, lifelong friendships.

In our nurturing and joyful environment, students are encouraged to:

• be courageous and confident • learn to their potential • become more self-aware • advocate for themselves • be a good friend

A commitment to a personal and active faith in God is an integral part of the Lower School through its celebration of the sacraments, the guided instruction through a developed religion curriculum, and through the introduction of contemplative practices and prayers.

Goal I • Faith

Through the education of girls, St. Madeleine Sophie Barat and the Religious of the Sacred Heart set out to make known the love of God revealed in the Heart of Christ. Our philosophy is to serve each child individually and personally, helping her use her talents and gifts to fulfill the role God intended for her.

Goal II • Intellect

Our program provides a developmentally appropriate, researchbased learning environment for young girls’ academic growth, with careful attention given to a curriculum that incorporates varied instructional approaches, opportunities for hands-on learning, and cross-curricular projects. Our girls know the mission, as children of the Sacred Heart, and, through this, they see themselves as engaged thinkers, productive creators, and lifelong learners.

A commitment to a deep respect for intellectual values is evident in our exceptional faculty, fully trained by Teachers College at Columbia University, and through a curricula based on research on how girls learn best.

Goal III • Service

St. Madeleine Sophie Barat knew that when a child knows that she is loved by God she can transform the world. Every part of our Social Action program is rooted in this fundamental insight. Stone Ridge students recognize their capacity to transform, to become powerful agents of God’s love and compassion.

Lower School students gain a social awareness through class discussions and age-appropriate research and through their participation in several community projects involving all four grades.

Our girls commit each year to supporting breast cancer research through a Denim and Pink Day, a local Catholic Charities beneficiary with clothing, and our Sacred Heart sister schools abroad, and other underserved populations in our country. Additionally, our students work in groups that prepare them to be stewards of the earth’s resources.

The School commits to the building of community as a Christian value by offering opportunities for girls to grow relationships.

A typical day opens with a Morning Meeting, following the Responsive Classroom model. Morning meetings build community by allowing small groups to focus on social-emotional development.

We provide our girls time to openly socialize through morning snack, Goûter, and through outdoor play. We often hold community assemblies for group prayer with songs and sharing.

Goal IV • Community

Stone Ridge creates a family environment where we build a collective, group experience, yet also continually focus on and celebrate the needs and gifts of each person. Our students have plenty of common ground in the form of traditions, values, skills, and knowledge, and yet they have a remarkable sense of and appreciation for personal identity.

The result: the development of strong, confident, competent, service-oriented leaders.

Goal V • Growth

The Lower School provides opportunities for each girl to develop a strong sense of academic, social, and emotional self. Our girls begin to understand and value the many gifts they bring to their family and friends, and the importance of making good choices.

Stone Ridge provides a space for girls’ voices to be heard.

Not only are our girls able to speak their thoughts, but they also can become leaders through that process.

Join the Team

Athletics are an extension of Stone Ridge’s educational mission. We aspire to develop Champions for Life by providing young women with an intentional and physically challenging athletic experience, inspiring not only competitive grace, but also lifelong healthy habits and a physical awareness of oneself. Through our whole child approach to coaching and teaching which complements the five Goals of Sacred Heart education, we guide each girl to be the best version of themselves through sport.

Opportunities abound for students to display their spirit: Blue Gold Induction and Team Challenges, Gator Game Day, Congés, Father Daughter Field Day, ...and more!

Creative Expression & Innovation

The Arts at Stone Ridge awaken a sensitivity to beauty and mystery. Our programming broadens our girls’ minds and hearts, while stimulating the senses and teaching them about culture and the world around them. Stone Ridge exposes the girls to a rich offering of music and movement programming as well as visual arts programming.

The Arts blend with our STEAM programming throughout cross-curricular lessons and activities, that involve inquiry and design. The design process may take the form of an experimental design, an engineering project, or a work of art. Inquiry-based learning and design thinking are woven through all levels of the curriculum to inspire students to think independently and to teach them to engage confidently with real-world problems.

A Portrait of a Graduate

A great Sacred Heart education is both timeless and timely—the skills and knowledge gained transcend time, and the values instilled at Stone Ridge are values that serve as a roadmap for life. We have consistently educated our graduates to be female leaders in their families, in their communities, in the Church, in their industries, and in our world.

As children of the Sacred Heart, we are each called to live not only for ourselves, but also to make the world a better place. The charism of the Sacred Heart is about both bringing the heart of Christ into the world, and finding it in the world —finding it in the people we meet, the opportunities we have, and the beautiful world around us.

College Matriculations

Below is a list of college matriculations for the past three years.

American University (2)

Kühne Logistics University, Germany

University of Florida

Barnard College (2)

Lafayette College

University of Maryland (8)

Bocconi University, Italy

La Salle University

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Boston College (11)

Loyola University Maryland (2)

University of Massachusetts, Boston

Boston University

Marist College

University of Miami (4)

Brown University (2)

Middlebury College (2)

University of Michigan (5)

Bucknell University (4)

New York University (4)

University of Minnesota

Case Western Reserve University

Northeastern University (4)

University of Mississippi (2)

Christopher Newport University

Northwestern University (4)

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2)

Claremont McKenna College

Pennsylvania State University (3)

University of North Carolina, Wilmington

Clemson University (3)

Pepperdine University

University of Notre Dame (9)

Cleveland Institute of Music

Pomona College

University of Oregon

Colby College (2)

Princeton University (2)

University of Pennsylvania

Colgate University (3)

Providence College

University of Pittsburgh (2)

College of Charleston (2)

Rice University

University of Richmond

College of the Holy Cross (3)

Rochester Institute of Technology

University of San Diego

College of William and Mary (4)

Sewanee: The University of the South

University of San Francisco

Columbia University

Siena College

University of Scranton

Cornell University

Southern Methodist University

University of South Carolina (5)

Dalhousie University, Canada

Spelman College (4)

University of Southern California

Dartmouth College (3)

St. Joseph’s University

University of St Andrews, Scotland

Davidson College (2)

St. Louis University, Madrid

University of Tennessee (2)

Denison University (2)

St. Mary’s College of Maryland

University of Texas, Austin

Drexel University (2)

Syracuse University (6)

University of Vermont

Duke University (2)

Towson University

University of Virginia (10)

Elon University (2)

Tufts University (2)

University of Wisconsin (5)

Emory University (2)

Tulane University (9)

Vanderbilt University

Escuela Superior de Administración y

United States Naval Academy

Vassar College

Dirección de Empresas (Spain)

University of Alabama (2)

Villanova University (5)

Fairfield University (5)

University of Arizona

Virginia Commonwealth University

Florida Institute of Technology

University of California, Berkeley

Virginia Tech (3)

Florida State University

University of California, Irvine

Wake Forest University (3)

Fordham University (3)

University of California, Los Angeles

Washington and Lee University

Furman University (2)

University of Chicago

Washington University in St. Louis

George Washington University (2)

University of Dayton

Wellesley College

Georgetown University (12)

University of Delaware

Williams College (3)

Gettysburg College

University of Denver (5)

Xavier University (4)

Hamilton College

University of Edinburgh

Yale University

Harvard University Haverford College (2) Howard University Indiana University (3) James Madison University (2) Johns Hopkins University (2) King’s College London

Once a child of the Sacred Heart, always a child of the Sacred Heart.

This home is our home, not just today but for our lifetime.

Let us respect childhood; let us honor the soul of that small creature of God who can already make choices of the best if we take the time to awaken her reason and make her use her judgment.

St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, Foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart

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