Harley’s Approach to College Counseling
“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.
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. 
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 
Project Based Learning
Investigating and Responding
Project Based Learning is a student-centered approach that encourages children to make meaningful connections across content areas. Teachers act as facilitators, guiding students to identify a question or real-world problem. Student interest and decision-making drives the learning.
Project Based Learning Process
Each project begins with a question or problem. Using 21st century skills like collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving. By starting with an essential question, children work together to develop a solution to the problem using evidence to support their claim. Students create a plan and begin the process of researching and solving the problem.
After reaching a conclusion or solution, students then communicate the solutions and demonstrate their knowledge by using various forms of media to create a product or presentation for a real audience.
Finally, taking time to reflect, individually and as a group, and to share feelings and experiences is an important piece to this process. Allowing students to discuss what worked well, what needs change, and to share ideas can lead to new questions and projects.
Project Based Learning allows for student choice, decision making, collaboration, and self-reflection. When children are interested in what they are doing and are able to use their areas of strength, they achieve at a higher level.
Examples
Grade 3
During the unit on Community, we work on a project inspired by the book Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran. Students research types of communities and discuss and debate what makes a community successful, including things like diversity, working together, needs versus wants. As a culminating activity, students use what they have learned to create, build, and write about their own model community.
Grade 4
Students studying inventors chose to create inventions for the “classroom of the future.” They brainstormed ideas of classroom gadgets, furniture, and learning tools that would help them learn better and/or be more comfortable in the classroom.
Each student chose an invention idea of personal interest and researched whether something similar already existed, how it might be created, whether it would be helpful. They designed prototypes of their new invention and wrote a descriptive advertisements to “sell” their product to others.
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