Signature Programs

BUILD

If your student likes to build

Design might look like a robot, a prototype, a sculpture, a stage set, a solar-powered car, or a solution to a real problem. Students learn to test ideas, make changes, and keep improving.

MOVE

If your student likes to move

Design is not just for engineers. It is for dancers shaping movement, athletes reading space, musicians building rhythm, artists making choices with form and color, and students learning how to turn possibility into action.

Thinking about design isn’t just for engineers. It’s for artists, dancers, entrepreneurs, scientists, builders, and you. It is how students learn to innovate by imagining what could be, testing what works, and revising what does not.

At Bancroft, design begins early. In the Lower School Tinker Lab, students learn that ideas can be built, tested, changed, and improved. Kindergarten students design leprechaun traps. Second graders build solar-powered cars. Across the grades, students use materials, tools, technology, and imagination to solve problems and explain their thinking.

As students grow, design becomes more complex. Middle School students build hypotheses, design experiments, test variables, study results, and explain what they discover. Upper School students apply design through robotics, science and engineering inquiry, research, the arts, entrepreneurship, and Senior Co-Op.

Design gives students a way to move from “what if?” to “let’s try.”

SAY IT

If your student likes to say it

Voice grows through Friday Share, classroom presentations, performances, Model UN, Speech, student leadership, and everyday moments when students explain their thinking and listen to others.

Bancroft students begin sharing ideas early, whether they are standing in front of classmates, performing for families, explaining a project, or asking a question in class. Over time, they learn to speak with clarity, listen with purpose, and understand the responsibility that comes with being heard.

Voice shows up in Lower School Friday Share, classroom presentations, the 4th Grade Wax Museum, the 5th Grade Invention Fair, Model UN, performing arts, Speech, student leadership, and everyday moments when students are asked to explain what they think and why it matters.

At Bancroft, student build confidence one experience at a time.

EXPLORE

If your student likes to see it in the world

Learning extends beyond campus through Worcester, fieldwork, travel programs, and Senior Co-Op. Recent trips have included Costa Rica, China, Yellowstone, and marine biology experiences.

At Bancroft, a question can become a science experiment, a research project, a presentation, a piece of writing, a trip into Worcester, or a Senior Co-Op experience. Students learn to follow ideas past the first answer and into the next question, and that learning often extends well beyond campus. Through Middle and Upper School travel programs during school breaks, students have explored places such as Costa Rica, China, Yellowstone, and marine biology field sites, bringing their curiosity into new cultures, ecosystems, and communities. Wherever the learning happens, the purpose is the same: to help students ask better questions, make meaningful connections, and see their learning in a wider world.