Welcome to Trinity School’s 2023-2024 Curriculum Guide!

Trinity School’s Mission Statement establishes both the means and the ends of our K-12 curriculum: namely, to “challenge the minds, fire the imaginations, and train the bodies of the young people who have been entrusted to us; to enlarge their spiritual lives; and to increase their capacity for mutual and self respect.” Every curricular decision we make seeks to live up to this language and reminds us of the vital importance of teaching our students how to approach problems creatively, patiently, collaboratively and honorably. To that end, we work towards a curriculum that balances practical necessities (what do our children need to know in order to thrive in this world?) with metacognitive awareness (how do we develop growth mindsets in our students?) with a determination to make learning at Trinity School be the most fun it can possibly be.

The catalog of courses in the following pages is the product of the creative tension described above. Trinity School may be commonly understood as an academic powerhouse, but we hope our curriculum tells a far more enticing and dynamic story. To be at Trinity is to be in community with people who love school deep down in their bones -- who love to read and debate and research and learn, and who love doing so together. Our courses and classrooms are designed to challenge our students -- no question about it -- but our mission pushes us far beyond mere academic challenge and into the realm of inspiration, imagination, and innovation.

To that end, our courses are designed to build on the past and to extend toward the future. Middle school students are exposed to a wide variety of classes throughout their four years so that they have an opportunity to discover new interests and learn the skills and habits of mind that will enable them to cultivate a love of lifelong learning. In the upper school, foundational required courses (largely taken in 9th and 10th grades) are designed to provide solid bases of fundamental knowledge. As our students move up through the grades they are able to exercise more direction over their education through our impressive array of elective offerings. Every 9th grader reads The Odyssey, for instance, but by the time our students are seniors they are able to choose between courses, such as Jimmy (Baldwin) and Friends and Literature from Hell and War and Peace and Shakespeare’s Comedies. Every 10th grader studies Chemistry, but by junior year there are eight different science courses and electives to choose from. As you read through these courses, we hope you imagine them as a window into our world. Above all else we hope you are able to get a sense of the thrilling possibilities at Trinity School: they are practically endless, and they happen every single day.