Who We Are
Juniper Hill School for Place-Based Education connects children to themselves, to each other, and to their communities through studying both natural and human environments. Utilizing integrated curriculum, immersion in the natural world, and social understanding, we strive to create peaceful, creative, loving children, who become masters of their own learning and actively help to make this world a better place. Juniper Hill was once a private resident consisting of a 1761 house, outbuildings, gardens, and 42 acres of fields, woods, marshes, and Sheepscot River frontage. In September 2011, this place became the Juniper Hill School, opening with almost 20 students (ages 3 to 7). Prior to its first full school year, from 2010-2011, Juniper Hill operated as a nature program once a week on Friday mornings.
What We Do
Juniper Hill School serves families in central and midcoast Maine who are ages four to eight in the current school year. We will be a pre-K through eighth grade school by 2018. Next year, 2013-14, we will accept ages four to nine (pre-K to third grade) students. We employ four full time teaching staff who are helped by one teacher apprentice and a seasonal teaching intern. The outdoors serves as our primary classroom and a springboard for a curriculum that synthesizes the best of 20th century progressive education with a 21st century place-based approach. We draw from a number of progressive educational philosophies, including, but not limited to: forest or nature schools, play theory, emergent, experiential, or constructivist curriculum, and Piaget/Dewey, Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio-Emilia philosophies. The teachers weave together the school?s place-based curriculum with child-centered activities, group learning, nature-based/seasonal units of study, and the creative arts with an intense social and academic course of study. We provide each child with the support, love, and time they need to learn, both socially and academically.
