About

Our Program

The philosophy of The Gap School embraces both Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence model and Mel Levine’s All Kinds of Minds neurodevelopment model. The teaching team’s goal is to understand each student’s strengths and challenges to best utilize both instructional models.

Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences are: Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Musical, Bodily-kinesthetic, Spatial, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Moral, Existential, Naturalist, and Spiritual. (www.howardgardner.com)
Mel Levine’s All Kinds of Minds philosophy: “Our unique philosophy and methods emphasize team collaboration by parents, students, educators, and clinicians to better understand and nurture children’s individual learning profiles of strengths and weaknesses.” (www.allkindsofminds.org)

Beyond our academic program, we offer students opportunities to grow through developing:

Social Skills
While social skills development is integrated throughout the child’s time at the Gap School, this classroom time is uniquely designed to give the students respite from the rigorous academic demands of their day. Our social skills class guides them in team building activities, self-reflection, and navigation of the social world. The atmosphere of this time is more relaxed, and the students have a safe environment to take steps towards understanding and discussing the complexities of both verbal and non-verbal communication.

Cognitive/Executive Functioning
The Gap School directly addresses cognitive and executive functioning skills. Many academically capable students are deficient in this area. We provide instruction and practice to strengthen cognitive/executive functioning skills and then teach the students how to utilize these skills in the classroom. As a result, students experience more academic success.

Physical Fitness
All students participate in personal fitness three days a week. The focus of this class is core strength, martial arts concepts, and health. Students participate in yoga stretching, nutrition instruction, anatomy, and physiology. They are encouraged to show self-control, good sportsmanship, and effort in all aspects of this class. Students are given leadership opportunities and are challenged to reach their maximum potential. This class participates in Fitness Fridays weekly to challenge them in improving their balance, muscle tone, and control.

Art
This class meets once per week. Many mediums are used to create wonderful pieces of art, which develops logic/reasoning, critical thinking, and fine-motor skills. Students are encouraged to be creative within an assigned task. Our students’ art work has been displayed through our Traveling Art Gallery, the Embracing Our Differences exhibit, the Sarasota International Airport, and other places within our community. The students’ artwork is also displayed throughout the hallways of our school.