About Trent: Our Philosophy

We Believe:

The Trent Schools are unquestionably and eminently successful with three types of home school students:

1.Exceptionally bright and motivated young men or women who demand challenges equal to their abilities.
2 Bright to normal students who, for lack of motivating instruction, have not been successful in public school programs.
3. Able-minded students who have not yet discovered their full potential.

Trent's unparalleled success is due to three unwavering principles:

1. Total dedication to the individuality of each student.
2. Taking total advantage of each student's unique learning style.
3. Unfettered allowance for each student to use curriculum to meet individual needs and goals.

Trent is the world's oldest established Internet home school service.  The Trent Schools were founded by Quakers.  Today, Trent's curriculum is strictly non-denominational with no emphasis placed upon any religion, creed or sets of beliefs other than the importance of community service.  Trent lessons permit and encourage the inclusion of personal family values and religious beliefs

At Trent, no student who truly wants to learn can fail.   Material must be mastered before a student moves on to the next grade.

Competition has its place. In the Olympics, World Cup Soccer, and the Superbowl, it's a great thing. But more important than merely competing, is selecting the right game and the right arena. Track stars and champion ice skaters do not play soccer on a basketball court. An NFL quarterback does not race a bicycle around a tennis court. Such competition might prove humorous, but the results would be meaningless.

This lopsided competition is what Trent sees in the education programs offered by most private and all public schools. A room full of students is forced to compete, student against student, regardless of vastly different ambitions and abilities. It's the academic equivalent of an ice skater competing against a weight lifter. In the classroom, however, the results are not laughable; they're often tragic and frustrating. Educational standards must be kept high. There can be no substitutes for competency in academics and extracurricular involvements. But the highest standard of all must be the school's recognition, regard, and treatment of each student as a unique, one of a kind, individual, with a unique, one of a kind set of dreams and drives. 

To ignore that individualism is to ignore one of the most important aspects of education.  Home school services which provide you with little more than books and printed lesson plans fail most noticeably in this area.

Trent is forsworn to clearly establish and encourage intensive competition between the student who is -- and the student who might be.

Imagine, if you can, the leaders of your country's government dressed for a football game against the world champion football team. The thought is too ridiculous to consider. It is just as ridiculous to match the student with high literary skills against another with strong mathematics abilities. Trent believes the literary student should be matched against what he or she might become: poet, novelist, critic, teacher. The mathematics student should do the same: compete against what he or she could very likely be: scientist, engineer, architect. But why should they compete against each other?

The Trent Schools are experienced experts in this educational approach. We invite you to carefully consider the unique individuality of your child, and what a wondrous, God-given thing that individuality truly is. Then, we invite you to consider how that quality will be respected, developed, and encouraged at Trent.