Singapore is now home to the first school in the region to hold a partnership with a top ranked US private school. RD American School is proud to work in partnership with Riverdale Country School, an independent school in New York City with more than a century of experience in education.
RDAS draws on Riverdale’s perspective and expertise as we build a school community of our own here in Singapore.
For families, this means that RDAS has developed its program in conversation with an established and respected institution, while remaining a distinct school with its own leadership, identity, and commitment to the needs of students in Singapore.
Founded in 1907, Riverdale Country School is one of New York City’s leading independent K–12 schools, recognized internationally for progressive education and academic excellence. Its graduates attend many of the world’s leading universities and become leaders across business, government, science, and the arts.
For more than a century, everything the school does has traced back to three words: mind, character and community. RDAS is built on the same three.
Source
First Riverdale Country School Bus, 1913
Every RDAS teacher is trained by Dr. Kevin Mattingly, former Lead Learning Designer at Riverdale Country School and Professor of Practice at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
On-site and remotely throughout the year, he shows our teachers how to turn the latest learning research into everyday lessons. It is one of the ways the thinking behind our partnership reaches your child’s classroom.
See How Our Teachers Teach
The best teaching asks a lot of a child and stays close enough to help them meet it. Riverdale calls this a balance of high challenge and high support. The challenge is real: children work with material a step beyond their comfort, explain their reasoning, and defend it out loud when a classmate pushes back.
The support is just as real: the student-to-faculty ratio is low, teachers know each child by name and by need, and the room is safe enough to try a hard question and get it wrong on the way to getting it right.
