| Odyssey School | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| San Mateo, California, United States | |
| Information | |
| Type | Private, Coeducational |
| Religious affiliation(s) | none |
| Established | 1998 |
| Head of school | Daniel Popplewell, Ph. D. |
| Faculty | 6 full-time; 4 part-time |
| Enrollment | about 30 |
| Classes | 8 to 15 students |
| Campus | Suburban, 3.5 acres (0.7 km²) |
| Website | www.odysseyms.org |
Odyssey School is a private middle school in San Mateo, California, a town about 15 miles (24 km) south of San Francisco. Odyssey caters to gifted and talented students in grades 6 through 8. Its five academic core subjects consist of writing, mathematics, science, humanities and Japanese. Offerings in creative arts include drama, choir, music history, pottery, set design, costume design and photography. The school also teaches swimming, dance, aerobics, karate, and stage combat under its "movement" program.[1]
Odyssey's theater program includes an annual visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, where students see and study a cross-section of Shakespeare's plays. The school's Japanese instruction culminates in a multiweek trip to Japan at the end of eighth grade, in which students stay at temples and Japanese homes.[2]
Odyssey students have won a variety of prizes in outside academic competitions in recent years. These include a first place in Notre Dame High School's 2009 Middle Math Contest (out of 190 contestants);[3] a first place in the 2008 Japanese speech contest of the Japanese Consulate General,[4] and first place for teamwork in the 2008 Fremont sectional of the FIRST Lego League Robotics Tournament [5]
Many Odyssey graduates attend college-preparatory schools such as San Francisco University High School, Woodside Priory School, Crystal Springs Uplands School and Menlo School. Others go on to local public high schools. Odyssey graduates later continue their studies at four-year colleges and universities such as UC-Berkeley, Cornell, Occidental, Reed and Carnegie-Mellon.[6][7]
Odyssey was founded in 1998.
Odyssey's founding Head of School, Stephen K. Smuin, has been a teacher and school administrator for more than 30 years. He previously was head of the middle school at The Nueva School, a private elementary and middle school in Hillsborough, California.[8] He is the author of three books on writing technique, including "More than Metaphors: Strategies for Teaching Process Writing.".[9] He retired in June 2010.
In July 2010, Daniel Popplewell joined Odyssey as its new Head of School. He previously had been the dean of teaching and learning at Bentley School [10] in Lafayette, California. He received his undergraduate degree in European literature from Cambridge University, postgraduate degrees from Oxford University and La Sorbonne Nouvelle, and a doctorate in French literature from Columbia University.