With the first day of school around the corner, what is the best way to make sure you and your children are ready? Our Head of Lower School Terry Smith’s three key suggestions are: sleep, routine and building up enthusiasm.
Summertime is for downtime: days may be less structured and bedtime may have been pushed back to enjoy the longer days. Dr. Smith says, if your children have not yet had a chance for downtime this summer, make sure they have some downtime as soon as possible. It’s important to have time for some relaxation before school. After at least a week of downtime, however, you will want to begin thinking about winding back that bedtime!
One of the best things you can do for you children is to begin preparing for the new sleeping schedule. With the sun up longer and a less structured environment, kids are staying up later and getting up later. You do not want to wait until the night before school starts to establish a new bedtime, rather you want to gradually move their bedtime back. In order to begin the transition, determine what time you need to leave the house for school. This will help you figure out what time your children need to be in bed the evening before, letting you do the math based on how many hours your children typically sleep.
Once you know the new wake-up time, you can start moving the bedtime up gradually. Increments of 30 minutes might be a good place to start, but this will depend on your normal bedtime routine. Remember, you’re working to establish a new bedtime that will ultimately allow your children to get enough rest for the normal school year.
Sleep is just the first step. Routine is also key. You want to work structure back into your children’s day. Set up a few activities to do during the day and discuss these plans with them. For example, you might plan to visit the library at 11 am, have lunch around noon and then head to the park around 3 pm. Small, scheduled events are a great way to reintroduce routine into the day. Don’t forget scheduled playdates either! If your children have not been around their normal peer group in a while, call up some parents and plan a playdate. If your children have not yet attended Harley, come by the school and play on the playground—familiarize yourself with the environment. You can plan a no-pressure playdate on the playground with some friends.
It’s also a good idea to start introducing lunch around the same time as school: 11:30-12:15. Since this is a predictable event in the Nursery and Lower School schedule, you will want to help your children be ready to eat at this time. Review the schedule and see which other events are routine, like naptime, and try to begin establishing these as part of your daily expectations.
For Nursery kids specifically: practice letting your children carry their backpack. Don’t do for them what they can do for themselves! This will also inspire confidence in your children, not to mention some well earned pride at his or her independence. For all children, allow them to be involved in the discussions about how to prepare for school each day. Let them pick what to have at school for naptime and what to keep at home. If your children are older and more capable, invite them to help determine what the routine will be for picking out clothes for school, when to pack their backpack, and what time is best for their bath to begin. This will allow you to not only include your children in decision-making, but also help you establish your routine for talking about school.
Help your children set expectations by chatting about what will happen at school. Think about what will be new in their schedule and discuss it with them. Ask what they are most excited about for the new school year. Encourage your children to begin jotting down notes about what they have done this summer, which will give them some ideas for the first assignment (what they did over the summer). Don’t worry about the academics! Focus on helping foster enthusiasm, getting your children rested, and ready for the school routine.
In order for you to be set for a great school year, make sure you have had some well-earned downtime. Then start gradually setting bedtime earlier and earlier. Reintroduce planned events into your day and start establishing your regular routine for the school day. The goal—and our hope —s both you and your children will be ready and excited for the new school year. See you in September!
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College Counseling
Harley’s Approach to College Counseling is highly individualized and student-centered. Students have direct access to college counselors throughout their Upper School experience, but really, each student is part of a team including faculty, administration, and staff. It’s our job to support each student and we want nothing more than to send students on to the next step of their journey at a right fit school for them. The student centered and driven process is wrapped in care, expertise, and professionalism.
We host college reps during times students are available (no need to miss a class) so they can make connections and learn more about potential schools. We also arrange campus visits for classes as field trips, host an alumni college day (where recent Upper School graduates return to share advice and answer questions), and help connect students with our international alumni network. In fact, representatives from schools all over the world actively seek opportunities to come to Harley and meet with our students!
Our college counselors are accredited and are part of national/global conversations on admission trends. They also attend and present at conferences across the country.
Beginning with our Grade 11 parent night, we offer informational sessions for parents, including one devoted just to financial aid. Our partnership with families is critical, as the college admissions world changes very quickly and having an expert to guide students and families through the process is essential.
Clubs
“Club Rush” is an afternoon every fall in the Upper School when students have the chance to sign up for clubs for the year, and each year it is very different because new clubs are created based on student initiative and enthusiasm.
A few of this year’s choices: Sports Media, Social Action Club, Journalism Club, Feminism Club, Student of Color & Allies (SOCA), Gay-Straight Alliance, Tri M (music honor society), E-Sports Club, Euchre, Key Club (service), Animation Club, Dungeons & Dragons, Sustainability Club, Jewish Cultural Club, Astronomy Club, Biomimicry, and Beyond Soup (social justice/service).
Athletics
Each and every year, students at The Harley School participate in HAC Athletics, and their success continues to be impressive, both as students and athletes. Our athletic program is an integral part of Harley, teaching student-athletes invaluable lessons about teamwork, time management, persistence, and competition. Our program allows them to develop physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally as they represent their school on and off the field. They grow, mature, and work hard to be the best teammate they can, while creating lifelong memories with teammates who often remain friends for life.
Helping our athletes to reach their potential are some of HAC’s best assets: our coaches. More often than not, they are drawn from the ranks of our faculty and have a deep understanding of the personalities and abilities of the student-athletes on their teams.
We strive to find the right balance of academics, exercise, and personal growth for everyone. By offering a variety of sports at many different levels, all student-athletes find a sport they can be successful in. It is with great pride and pleasure that my team and I work to enrich the athletic lives of all our HAC student-athletes. Go Wolves!
To learn more check out our athletics page.
Student Leadership
Our Upper School is filled with formal and informal opportunities for students to take on leadership roles. Whether following passions or learning new skills, student-driven opportunities take many shapes.
– Independent study: one trimester, full year, and multi-year projects have included automating our solar chimneys, coding handmade musical instruments, or developing a class on financial literacy for underserved high school students.
– Serving on student council
– STEM: Climate curriculum program, biomimicry program, NASA Hunch program
Clubs
“Club Rush” is an afternoon every fall in the Upper School when students have the chance to sign up for clubs for the year, and each year it is very different because new clubs are created based on student initiative and enthusiasm.
A few of this year’s choices: Sports Media, Social Action Club, Journalism Club, Feminism Club, Student of Color & Allies (SOCA), Gay-Straight Alliance, Tri M (music honor society), E-Sports Club, Euchre, Key Club (service), Animation Club, Dungeons & Dragons, Sustainability Club, Jewish Cultural Club, Astronomy Club, Biomimicry, and Beyond Soup (social justice/service).
Hospice
Unlike this class, death is not an elective. Although it is one of two universal human experiences, our culture often ignores, denies, or misconstrues the true nature of death and dying. What happens when we bear witness to this natural process in the cycle of life and develop our ability to be fully present with others when they need us more than ever? It has the potential to change us deeply and fundamentally while shining a brilliant light on the path of our own lives.
With the support of their classmates, teacher, and comfort care home communities, senior students are offered the chance to care for others who truly need their purposeful, non-judgmental attention. In the home-like setting of a comfort care home, opportunities for learning extend beyond a traditional classroom rubric and conventional methods of evaluation. In this course, students will certainly find tangible “learning outcomes” by studying the medical/physical processes associated with dying and the basic nursing assistant skills of comfort care. The ultimate goal, however, will always be rooted in true relationships and connection, which occurs only through empathy and compassion.
Learn more about the Hospice Program at Harley HERE.
Capstone/Independent Studies
This program utilizes environmentally-focused approaches to education and hands-on learning in order to foster the next generation of leaders through a lens of sustainability and problem-solving.
Food & Farm: These year-long and trimester-long classes are held outside as much as possible, allowing students to become leaders in our various growing spaces. They cover environmental justice issues as well as hands-on work such as planning and overseeing planting, harvesting, and preparation of the gardens.
Past year-long focus projects have included: Creating a native plant shade garden in the Wild Wood area, redesigning our hydroponic system, overhauling Harley’s high tunnel, and improving the irrigation system for the MicroFarm.
Culinary Arts: These classes have a two-fold purpose: to give students practical skills in cooking and the science behind different techniques in the kitchen, learning about food justice, food sourcing, labor topics, and sustainability.
Past topics have included: Examining a plant-based diet, looking at the carbon footprint of different meals and food preparation methods, proposing a low carbon footprint menu to the dining hall, links between food labeling and environmental issues of food production.
Beekeeping: This one trimester class provides hands-on training in beekeeping, how to be a beekeeper, and safety and other techniques for working with bees. Once trained students help with all aspects of Harley beekeeping such as hive inspections, honey collection and extraction, and teaching students in Lower School about our hives.
Students pick a research topic addressing honeybee health and the larger environmental picture.
Social Justice
At Harley, our students learn how to evaluate social systems in order to identify complex problems in society through a lens of social justice. They take a hands-on approach to working for a fair, equitable society by researching, exploring and evaluating different perspectives, and offering solutions—both theoretical and practical.
Our faculty integrate social justice into our broader curriculum to assist students in gaining a foundational knowledge about what makes a democracy function. By gaining skills in ideating supportive pathways they become more exposed and experienced to how communities can undergo healing and restorative actions.
Capstone/Independent Studies
Students may create independent studies with supervising teachers throughout their Upper School experience or, during Grade 12, they can design Capstone projects—intensive collaborations with Harley faculty and off-campus mentors—involving rigorous academic study and culminating in public presentations. They are empowered to create their own curriculum, set goals, and work on time management skills in order to accomplish their objectives.
Independent Studies run the gamut from The Psychology of Sports to Furniture Design to The Neuroimaging of Alzheimer’s Disease. Capstones, meanwhile, are as diverse as the students who pursue them: Fictional Rochester, Autobiographical Art, Biomimicry Education, Organic Fuel, and Rochester Refugees.
Indicative of Upper School curiosity and creativity, pursuits such as these distinguish our graduates in college. Through deep dives of this sort, Harley students master more than speaking, writing, and computing: they learn to communicate, advocate, collaborate, organize, listen, and empathize.
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