Construction

at The Rectory

School nears 

completion

POMFRET — New construction on The Rectory School campus on Route 44 in Pomfret is on schedule for completion at year’s end. When teachers and students return from their holiday break, they will move into the newly created academic spaces. 

The Hale Elementary School Wing will occupy the lower level with the Smith Learning Center on the second floor. The new homes for Rectory’s elementary school (kindergarten through fourth grade) and Rectory’s signature Individualized Instruction Program (IIP) have been designed to create an environment that is at once academic and nurturing. The unique needs of each program will be served in their new areas. 

Also new will be a reconfigured entrance that will centralize and expedite the morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up for Rectory’s 104 day students.

The opening of the Smith Learning Center marks the first time that Rectory’s Individualized Instruction Program (IIP) will have its own dedicated area. The Smith Learning Center, which is adjacent to the middle school classrooms for easy access for students, will serve as the hub for the collaborative efforts of students’ teachers and tutors.

The 17 tutoring rooms open into a common area that features individual work spaces, a small group study lounge, and comfortable seating for reading and conversation. In addition to these spaces, there are computer stations offering assistive technology to support learning. A resource room and a new office for Director of Learning Services, Scott Greene, are key additions to the new facility. Individualized instruction, a notable feature of the school since its founding in 1920, provides academic support for both remediation and enrichment.

Facing the campus at grade, the Hale Elementary School Wing has been designed to be open and flexible. The space can be configured for full classes and small groups. The ground-level space, accessed by a hallway filled with natural light, contains three elementary school classrooms with dividing partitions. Closer inspection reveals that this is no traditional layout. Nooks for quiet reading, window seats, and hallways are also learning spaces. Director of the Elementary School, Maria Carpenter, anticipates that creative teachers and students will adapt theses spaces for small-group instruction, observation, writing, and discussion. 

Even the entry lobby with its movable seating is intended to double as program space during the school day. 

Large windows and flexible spaces are features of this area, specifically designed for students ranging from kindergarten through fourth grade. It has been designed to support and facilitate a project-based curriculum, incorporating nature and the environment as fully as possible.

Carpenter and Greene readily acknowledge the collaboration with architect Kevin Tubridy of New England Design. “He listened to what we wanted and helped turn our visions into a set of architectural drawings that completely satisfied our image of the perfect space,” Carpenter said. Tubridy, a 1960 alumnus of The Rectory School and a current trustee, also developed Rectory’s Master Plan.  

This construction is funded through the ongoing Master Plan capital campaign; Phase I raised $5,469,602 from more than 120 donors and encompassed five separate projects:

1. Renovations to Grosvenor House, including the new Admissions entrance (completed April 2013); 

2. New construction of a new faculty duplex with one three-bedroom home and one four-bedroom home (completed August 2014);

3. Renovations to the Father Bigelow Memorial Dormitory, including a new three-bedroom faculty apartment (completed September 2014); 

4. New construction of The Seaward Family Student Pavilion and the Wang Family Amphitheater (completed May 2015);

5. New Construction of the academic addition housing the Hale Elementary School Wing and the Smith Learning Center (anticipated completion December 2016).

Naming gifts for the new academic addition were received from the Hale Family: Betty, Laurence, Jane, Helen ’16, Newell ’19, and Peter ‘21 (Hale Elementary School Wing) and June and Henry Smith ‘76 (Smith Learning Center). “The school received extraordinary support at the leadership level from our community,” observed Headmaster Fred Williams. “This generosity assures that The Rectory School, now approaching its centennial, will continue to meet the needs of the students it serves.”