GCDS Upper School
GCDS Upper School
The Upper School at Greenwich Country Day offers a transformative experience built on solid foundational values and designed to help our students thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Many teenagers laugh when their parents go on and on about when they were younger--a time when music was barely portable, pictures took days to develop, phones had long cords and were fixed to walls, and career paths were largely known and mostly predictable. Today's world is vastly different and far less certain. We designed our Upper School to prepare students for a future where change will be the norm and adaptability will be essential.
Our students are both consumers and creators of knowledge. Under the guidance of an extraordinary faculty, we help students find natural connections between traditional subject areas and engage in deep and joyful learning. Our students think critically and creatively across subject matter; pose and pursue meaningful questions; work collaboratively in order to problem-solve and produce high quality work; communicate with empathy, purpose, and clarity; explore interests, build purpose, and persist through setbacks; and engage independently and with curiosity in learning.
Our teachers love learning and care deeply about our students’ growth and needs. As is the case in all grades at GCDS, in our Upper School, students are known and valued. We guide our students as they develop a strong moral compass and act with the highest standards of character, integrity, and care.
And we do all of this on our beautiful, new 42-acre campus, which enhances our students’ journey every step of the way. From Orientation to Seminar class, to a yearly three-week intersession, to a Junior Thesis, our educational approach is crafted for the world students inhabit today and the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they will need for tomorrow.
Dr. Chris Winters
Head of Upper School
*Any pictures in which students are not masked or not distanced are from the 2019-2020 School Year.
In gathering a fantastic faculty from around the world, and developing a rigorous, rich, and inventive Upper School curriculum, GCDS has also had the opportunity to, quite literally, build an Upper School from scratch. While many independent schools look for ways to pivot to the future with the facilities that they have, we are completing an Upper School campus, specifically designed around our academic program. For the design of our spaces, the leadership team has traveled to universities and research institutes around the country to gain insight into the future directions of education in engineering, the arts, sciences, and the humanities.
In addition to our current building, this August we will open the doors to:
A two-story science and engineering center, with outdoor and indoor state-of-the-art laboratories for instruction, experimentation, and independent thesis research
New classrooms for humanities and world languages, along with seminar rooms, and a wide range of collaborative work spaces
New visual arts and digital & industrial design spaces
A Writing Center and Math Lab
A performing arts wing with studios and rehearsal spaces for our programs in vocal and instrumental music, a music technology center, and a dance studio
A state-of-the-art fitness facility, along with a training center and athletic locker rooms
]Upper School
Leadership Team