National Geography Bee

The 2018 National Geographic Geography Bee took place in January with classroom winners in grades five through eight competing to become our school champion. After several rounds of intense questioning, sixth grader Lexie took third place, barely edging out fifth grader Riley. After the championship round, seventh grader Kelly took second place and eighth grader Sneha emerged as the school’s champion and went go on to take the qualifying test for the state competition. We also want to congratulate the other classroom winners who competed – Daniel, Jordan, Roy and Henry. We wish Sneha the best of luck in the next steps of the competition…she’s made it to the state level!

Pen & Paper Wins National Recognition!

Hot off the presses! We just received word that the 2017 issue of Unquowa’s student literary magazine, Pen & Paper, received recognition in two national competitions! Click here to read the issue online! 

The magazine won “First Place with Special Merit” from the American Scholastic Press Association … Unquowa is the only school in Connecticut to receive this level of recognition this year! Two student editors received individual awards as well from ASPA. Ryan won the “Outstanding Poetry” award for his work entitled “Two-Faced” and Samantha earned the “Outstanding Story” award for her piece titled “Time After Time.” The ASPA honors are especially impressive since Unquowa’s competition included public and private middle and high schools as well as colleges and universities across the country.

The 2017 Pen & Paper also won praise from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. In their annual review it earned a “Gold Medal Rating” with “All-Columbian Honors” in every evaluation category.

Each year, Unquowa’s Upper School students submit photography, art, poetry and other writing to the magazine’s student editorial board. Together with faculty advisors, the editors provide feedback on submissions, work on content, design and layout for the annual publication.

Pen & Paper is an authentic outlet for our Humanities program. Student submissions are anonymous during the review process, where they receive constructive criticism from our student editorial staff. “This process really supports a culture of excellence in the magazine and in our school. I’ve seen my students take the feedback they receive, revise their work and re-submit multiple times. As an English teacher, seeing students ‘own’ the writing process is its own reward,” says Humanities teacher and advisor Mr. Seferidis.

Congratulations to our amazing team of student contributors and editors! What an incredible feather in Unquowa’s cap during this year of Centennial celebrations!

Girls Green Win Season Opener!

The Girls 5th & 6th Grade basketball team opened the season on January 3 with a 36-7 win over Bi-cultural Day School. The girls dominated all aspects of the game including scoring, defense and rebounding.  Over half the team contributed to the score and Grade 5 point guard Ryley Tate-Padian scored double figures. Come cheer on this powerful team of girls…Go Gators!

Cross Country’s Fall Season

Unquowa’s cross country team ended the fall season on 11/9/17 at Sherwood Island. Our team continues to improve with every season as the runners make an impact both individually and as a team. We enjoyed nine new members to our squad, five 5th graders and four 6th graders. We celebrated personal best times, sometimes taking not just seconds but minutes off them. At every meet we had two runners place in the top five. For the first time ever, we had four runners place in the top five: Karleigh, Connor, Kelly and Ben. Also, for the first time ever, we had two runners win the championship meet: Kelly and Connor. Each of our runners were fun to watch and they exhibited the character of support and sharing that makes a group a team. Go Gators!

Over Land, Over Sea

Our cross country fall season is off to a running start! I’m so thrilled to be a part of one of the biggest and most enthusiastic teams at Unquowa! All of the coaches have been blown away by the commitment shown by our runners. At both practices and meets the kids have consistently pushed themselves as well as cheered each other on. We greatly appreciate the support of the parents, traveling long distances to root for us at our meets! All of our runners have improved their times race to race and strived for their personal bests. Some of our standouts have been Karleigh placing 5th at Penfield Beach, Kelly placing 2nd at Merwin Meadows and Connor, placing second at all three meets!

Eighth Grade Team Wins Second Place at Science Olympiad

Four eighth grade girls represented The Unquowa School in the annual Science Olympiad held on the 23rd of September at Lauralton Hall High School. The girls competed against several other eighth grade teams in a test of science skills. Our team, made up of Brooke, Maddie, Abby and Sneha were called the Orbitals. The girls, working as a team had to prove spatial reasoning prowess with a Tangram puzzle challenge, demonstrate prior knowledge by matching bird adaptations, and think like engineers to build wind powered cars out of lifesaver mints and paper. Task pressure was added by competing  against other teams and the clock. Congrats to the Orbitals for our first top three finish in the past seven years!