Academics

FPO

Nueva students learn by doing. They construct knowledge through hands-on engagement. As experts in project-based learning, teachers guide authentic and purposeful investigations that enable discovery while building the skills students need to be successful.

At Nueva, learning is authentic, complex, and intellectually rigorous. Students do real work as authors, artists, inventors, explorers, athletes, and mathematicians. Giving students choice, autonomy, and high expectations for growth, we harness intrinsic motivation as the engine for academic excellence.

Through an interdisciplinary and inquiry-based program, students discover and master foundational skills in traditional academic disciplines while learning to grapple with the unknown, embrace multiple perspectives, and create novel solutions.

Lower School

Grades PreK–4

Our lower school is a haven for young gifted learners. Our intellectually engaging and creative program incorporates the powerful and joyful elements of early education: deep investigation, inquiry, play, kindness, friendship, community, and essential connections to the outdoors.

Middle School

Grades 5–8

The middle school years are a time of excitement, in which students find their voice and discover how they can make an impact on the world. Teachers use projects, trips, and activities and clubs to make the middle school experience rich with academic and elective experiences.

Upper School

Grades 9–12

At the upper school, the students’ experience is at the center of everything we do. We nourish their love of learning by providing each student unparalleled opportunity to chart their own pathway through high school. 

Nueva's hallmark programs feature:

  • Project-based learning
  • Social-emotional learning
  • Design thinking and engineeering
  • Global citizenship
  • Differentiated curricula

Nueva's culture honors and embraces:

  • Spirit of inquiry
  • Integrity
  • Diversity of perspectives
  • Community and connectedness
  • Creativity and innovation
  • Social justice, equity, and inclusion

Learn More About Our Campuses

Lower, Middle, & Upper School News

Photo Walk Series: A Day in the Lower School
Photo Walk Series: A Day in the Lower School

This Wednesday, lower school students could be seen seeking mittens in the woods, creatively imitating animals in the ballroom, measuring their teachers on the lawn, and soldering wires in the I-Lab. We invite you to learn more about a variety of lower school class activities.

Our Photo Walk Series aims to provide the community with a snapshot in time—a celebration of work being done across grade levels, content areas, and divisions.

Stop-motion Animation Project Brings Mali Empire Study to Life
Stop-motion Animation Project Brings Mali Empire Study to Life

In a project that combines art, movement, and theater, third grade students are telling stories of the Mali Empire through stop-motion animation, a sophisticated art form that challenges students to plan out their thoughts, work collaboratively, and use new-to-them technological tools.

Upper School Art Explores Temporality and Permanence
Upper School Art Explores Temporality and Permanence

This spring, Nueva Upper School art classes have been exploring the themes of permanence and temporality, and what this means materially, conceptually and visually. Students worked in 2D and 3D formats to investigate the full range of possibilities related to their unique experience and voice. They came to the conclusion that nothing is permanent, and many sought to challenge the human myth of control and static definition related to the industrialized and colonized world.

Illustrated Graph Project Merges Science and Art to Raise Awareness
Illustrated Graph Project Merges Science and Art to Raise Awareness

A multidisciplinary 5th grade lesson is teaching students to interpret and communicate climate change data through art.

“The Illustrated Graph project encourages student wonder,” Teacher Cristina Veresan said. “It’s a beautiful example of making art in the service of science communication. 

New Upper School Psychology Program a Hit with Students
New Upper School Psychology Program a Hit with Students

Does digital technology change our thinking? Why do art and music affect people differently? Can we predict who a person will be attracted to? How does a person form an identity? Can trauma be inherited? What are the roots of prejudice? These are some of the questions explored by upper school students in psychology.

Photo Walk Series: An Afternoon at the Upper School
Photo Walk Series: An Afternoon at the Upper School

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, upper school students could be heard presenting to their peers, playing games in world languages, and oohing and ahhing as they discovered the molarity of chemical solutions. We invite you to learn more about a variety of Block 8 classes below.

Building a Present Tense of the Ohlone People
Building a Present Tense of the Ohlone People

Second graders spent weeks researching the Ramaytush Ohlone to understand their culture, history, and impact on the land before culminating their learning by writing their own land acknowledgements and turning them into posters to be displayed around the Hillsborough campus.