News from Nate is a weekly newsletter written by Associate Head of School Nate Snow to keep you up-to-date on campus news and weekend activities.
Hi WMS Families!
We've had a great Spirit Week here on campus and we are all looking forward to our Halloween Community Dinner tonight, complete with a costume parade and a variety of fun holiday games and activities. This is all put on by our student-run Social Committee. They do an awesome job!
This weekend is our third Project Block of the year. We have a few courses taking advantage of the extended classroom time to get out into the local community. Spanish IV will be off campus practicing their language skills with local native Spanish speakers. Ceramics students will be touring a local gallery to gain inspiration for their work, and Environmental Literature will be advancing their study of wildness and wilderness by interviewing hikers at the Falling Waters trail head and creating a documentary. Back on campus, students in Biology will be designing their own lab procedures and doing a lab with enzymes to advance their understanding of cellular biology. And in US History, students will be taking a deep dive into the federal election process through the lens of this fall's federal and state elections.
There is a lot happening on and off campus this weekend! Littleton hosts an awesome pumpkin lighting and walk along the beautiful Ammonoosuc River on Saturday night. Our students have carved some pumpkins for this event and will participate in the annual festivities. The mountain bike team has their championship race Saturday afternoon at Highland Mountain Bike Park and girls soccer hosts KUA this weekend, in their last home game of the season. On Sunday, dorms Carter and Hill House will be doing a first-ever clothing swap, helping to get underused clothes into other students' hands who will use them rather than having them end up discarded at the end of the year.
Please let me know if you have questions about anything happening on or around campus. As always, have a great weekend!
News from Nate is a weekly newsletter written by Associate Head of School Nate Snow to keep you up-to-date on campus news and weekend activities.
Hi WMS Families!
It was great being able to connect with so many of you on campus last weekend. Luckily the foliage and lovely weather managed to hold on just long enough for you all.
This past Wednesday, we held our annual College Day event here on campus for 9th through 12th graders. Seniors had a chance to work on their college applications, sit through mock interviews and participate in meetings with teachers to go over the all-important essay. Seniors really appreciated having a day to just focus on this and receive valuable support and feedback. 9th graders had a chance to do some bonding, goal setting and begin laying the groundwork for their college process. The 10th and 11th graders all used the morning to take the PSAT - also an important piece for college preparation.
Next week is our Spirit Week here on campus! This fun week, put together entirely by our social committee, is a highlight of the year for many and brings a great energy and a little silliness to campus (while managing to not distract us too much from our studies). Students and faculty also earn light blue/dark blue participation points for their teams as well. This awesome week culminates in our big Halloween Community Dinner next Friday night - I'm sure there will be some great photos to share from all of our fun next week!
This coming week, WMS will be hosting an event as part of the Text Less /Live More campaign. This student-led organization was founded at Milton Academy by friends of Merritt Levitan, a teenager killed in 2013 by a driver who was texting. Awareness of this effort and Merritt's story was brought initially to WMS last year by faculty member Emily Hammel, who was with the cycling group when Merritt was hit and killed. WMS will participate in this nation-wide campaign by asking everyone in the community to sign a pledge never to text and drive, handing out bracelets and phone stickers, and by holding a "no phone day" on Tuesday. The mission of the Text Less /Live More campaign goes beyond distracted driving as an issue and encourages everyone to celebrate life and to connect with one another in real time, as this also was Merritt's Way.
Please let me know if you have questions about anything happening on or around campus. As always, have a great weekend!
News from Nate is a weekly newsletter written by Associate Head of School Nate Snow to keep you up-to-date on campus news and weekend activities.
Hi WMS Families!
We had a fabulous week of Field Courses last week. It is so great to hear from students and faculty about the great work and the amazing experiences that they shared with one another. Eliot, our Assistant Director of Admission and Communications has been collecting photos from the groups and is posting them to the School’s SmugMug page. I encourage you to check those out to get a sense of some of the Field Course awesomeness. Thanks also to Shane for holding down the fort while we were away and for pushing out last week’s update!
The cooler nights this past week have kicked the beautiful fall foliage into high gear. We’ll do our best to hold on to it for you until Family Weekend arrives!
This is another busy weekend on (and around campus). Tonight, as previously noted, we are excited to host Chris Waddell on campus to present his Nametags program. Saturday morning is our second Project Block (B) of the year, and we have sports on Saturday afternoon. Jen is hosting the off-campus trips this weekend. She is taking a group out for sushi on Saturday night and then leading a day-long excursion to Burlington, Vt. on Sunday. Our student-led Social Committee has organized a coffeehouse event on Saturday night in the living room of Dickey House. Tim and Julie love hosting these energetic student performances in their home each year.
Do you ever wonder what your kids are eating while they are at school? That’s a question I can’t answer (unless you want me to, in which case I’ll find out), but I can at least tell you what we are serving each day. Our food service provider, NexDine, and chef Richard Carpenter post weekly menus, so it’s always easy to see what’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Our Sustainability Club continues to partner with the kitchen to increase and promote the use of local food, including produce from the WMS Farm. Their efforts will be highlighted at Harvest Dinner. The meal, held Friday during Family Weekend, will showcase an amazing array of local food, much of it from campus or contributed through the work of our students.
Please let me know if you have questions about anything happening on or around campus. Have a great weekend, everyone!
News from Nate is a weekly newsletter written by Associate Head of School Nate Snow to keep you up-to-date on campus news and weekend activities. This week, Academic Dean, Shane MacElhiney, is taking over while Nate is away on Field Course.
Hi WMS Families,
As I’m writing this, most of our Field Course groups are making their way back to campus. Like you, I can’t wait to hear about their experiences and see photos!
Looking ahead, there are only two weeks of school between now and Family Weekend and Fall Break.
Next Friday, we are very excited to welcome Chris Waddell to campus to present his Nametags program to the school community. A graduate of Deerfield Academy, Chris became paralyzed from the waist down in a skiing accident while he was a student-athlete at Middlebury College. Chris returned to Middlebury just two months after his accident. Two years later, he was named to the U.S. Paralympics Alpine Ski Team. He went on to become a seven-time paralympian, winning a total of 13 medals in the summer (track and field) and winter (alpine skiing) games. Chris was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Paralympics Hall of Fame in 2010. He has summited Mt. Kilimanjaro and is the founder of the One Revolution Foundation, an organization whose mission it is “to turn the perception of disability upside down.”
Chris’s Nametags program, which has been presented to more than 200,000 students worldwide, focuses on empowering students to choose their own labels or “nametags.” He uses his own story to illustrate the message that “it is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you” that is most important. We are excited to hear Chris speak and have built some additional time into our Community Life curriculum for follow-up activities after his visit.
The following Friday, October 14, is the first day of Family Weekend. If plan to join us that weekend but have not registered, please do so today. Registering will ensure you are able to meet with your student’s teachers and assists us with planning for events and meals.
Immediately following Family Weekend is our short Fall Break. (Campus will be closed the afternoon of Saturday, October 15 until Tuesday, October 18 at 3 p.m.) Students may leave for break following their last commitment on Saturday. Boarding students should return to campus Tuesday between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. (The exceptions are those traveling on the WMS Bus departing from the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport at 8 p.m., and those traveling on the Concord Coach arriving in Littleton at 9:30 p.m.)
Students who are applying to college this fall may request permission to return Wednesday evening if they are using Tuesday to visit colleges.
Speaking of college, Wednesday, October 19 is College Day and the PSAT. Look for more details next week!
Although students will have just returned from Field Course, there is still a lot happening this weekend. Both the boys and girls soccer teams have home games on Saturday afternoon — Go Blue! And, there are some cool off-campus excursions planned, including trips to the Colonial Theater in Bethlehem to see the Manhattan Short Film Festival and to Bretton Woods Mountain Resort, where we’ll take a free ride up the mountain on the chair lift and hike down. And, best of all, on Friday night, there will be ice cream sundaes with me in the dining hall. Who doesn't love a little extra yumminess after a trip into the field!
News from Nate is a weekly newsletter written by Associate Head of School Nate Snow to keep you up-to-date on campus news and weekend activities.
There is a lot of excitement around here as we make our final Fall Field Course preparations. The fact that the weather remains nice and more like late summer than early fall doesn’t hurt either. Hopefully the foliage, which is just starting to show, will hang on until many of you make it to campus for Family Weekend in mid-October!
Typically, students will not have their phones with them next week during their Field Courses. So most likely you will not hear directly from them next week. (For some of you, that may just seem like an ordinary week!) If you need to reach your child, please contact the school, and we will put you in touch with the group.
Next week, the Main Office will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, and Shane will be available on the Administrator on Duty cell phone (603-616-1528) outside of those times. Health Services staff will be on-call as well. Field Course groups will check in with the school when they arrive at their destinations and periodically throughout the week (as email and cell phone access allows), We will keep you updated as well. Keep an eye on our social media pages. We’ll post photos and videos as they come in!
There is a lot going on this weekend on campus, around Field Course preparations. Two groups — Nicaragua Community Service and Desert Ecology — are actually leaving this weekend. Renee is running an always popular trip to Maine for the Common Ground Country Fair. Both the boys and girls soccer teams are in action Saturday. And on Sunday, Carl is running a seasonally appropriate trip to the world-class Great Vermont Corn Maze.
Looking ahead, WMS is very excited to welcome Chris Waddell to campus on October 7 to present his Nametags program to the school community. A graduate of Deerfield Academy, Chris became paralyzed from the waist down in a skiing accident while he was a student-athlete at Middlebury College. Chris returned to Middlebury just 2 months after his accident. Two years later, he was named to the U.S. Paralympics Alpine Ski Team. He went on to become a 7-time paralympian, winning a total of 13 medals in the summer (track and field) and winter (alpine skiing) games. Chris was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Paralympics Hall of Fame in 2010. He has summited Mt. Kilimanjaro and is the founder of the One Revolution Foundation, an organization whose mission it is “to turn the perception of disability upside down.”
Chris’s Nametags program, which has been presented to more than 200,000 students worldwide, focuses on empowering students to choose their own labels or “nametags.” He uses his own story to illustrate the message that “it is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you” that is most important. We are excited to hear Chris speak and have built some additional time into our Community Life curriculum for follow-up activities after his visit.
Thanks to those of you who have RSVP’d for our upcoming Family Weekend on October 14 and 15. We are looking forward to seeing many of you on campus. If you plan on attending and have yet to let us know, please take a minute to fill out this registration form. You can find a schedule of events on our website.
Parents, if you have not had the chance to sign the Community Handbook acknowledgement, please take a minute and do so now. (To access it, sign in to your MyWMS account.) Next week, Jessica will follow up with families with incomplete acknowledgements, so completing it now will help her out tremendously. Students signed this acknowledgement as part of their Advisor meetings this week.
Lastly, a big thank you to Shane, who will be holding down the fort on campus next week while everyone is on Field Course. Shane will share next weekend’s schedule with you all on Friday — perhaps with some updates of his own.
News from Nate is a weekly newsletter written by Associate Head of School Nate Snow to keep you up-to-date on campus news and weekend activities.
Happy Friday! I will be sending an update each Friday from my office on the happenings around school and highlighting any noteworthy events that may be coming up. I do very much try to have this communication be a “door opening” endeavor with regard to parent communication — if you ever have questions or concerns about anything, please feel free to email me directly or reach out in any other way.
I know your students won't always include you on all the goings-on here on campus (shocking, I know!), so I will do my best to close that gap a bit. If you have any thoughts on other things you’d like to see or hear more about, please let me know. I look forward to getting to know many more of you as the year unfolds!
As we wind down the first full week of new classes, dorm meetings, new sports, advisor meetings and other school-specific orientation tasks, people seem to be settling in well to the new routine and adjusting to life at the start of a new school year. It is certainly a busy schedule that many of us are adapting to following a slower pace in the summer. As many of you know, however, we are working in an entirely new class schedule this year. Thus far, the feedback from both faculty and students has been overwhelmingly positive on the more compassionate pace of the new weekly schedule. (A later start time to Morning Meeting most certainly helps!) This feedback is certainly something we will continue to gather.
Speaking of Morning Meeting, we have heard a few amazing Morning Readings from faculty this week, featuring their personal stories or reading the thought-provoking work of others. Noteworthy in this was Hiapo memorializing the 9/11 attacks by reading the Billy Collins poem “The Names.” This was a powerful reminder of the individual effects of that tragic day. A number of students and faculty also had the chance last weekend to go and see Billy Collins speak and read some of his poetry.
In the “upcoming events” category, our Fall Family Weekend (October 14-15) will soon be upon us, and we are looking forward to seeing many of you here on campus. You will have an opportunity to visit classes, meet with teachers, advisors and administrators, see some theater and musical performances and soccer games, as well as simply connect with what your WMS student has been doing in the first few months of school. There will also be parent presentations from our College Counselor, our famous Harvest Dinner featuring some great produce from our organic garden and a “grand opening” of our new Chapel and academic spaces. (Spoiler alert: We’re already using them!) We do ask that you register in advance for Family Weekend to help us in our planning (particularly those who desire to meet with teachers). This link will take you to our website with additional schedule information and a form to submit for your registration. If you have any questions about Family Weekend, please let Jessica or me know.
Our Communications team has been busy with the start of the school year as well. We would love for those of you on social media to connect with WMS on Facebook or Instagram. Don’t forget to “friend,” “like,” “follow,” etc., and feel free to leave a comment or two as well! Eliot also has been furiously compiling all of the photos and video from Orientation Trips, Community Weekend and the first week of school into photo albums on the School’s SmugMug site, so be sure to check that out as well.
Here are a few quick activities of note: Our girls soccer team plays their first home game on Saturday at 3 p.m. on Edge Field against Holderness. The boys soccer team travels to KUA for its second game of the year on Saturday afternoon. Shane is leading a trip for students to get some local North Country culture and watch some short track racing at White Mountain Speedway on Saturday night. A couple of student clubs are meeting this weekend as well —with the DIY Club making homemade kale chips with kale from our garden and our student-led Creative Game Club planning our very own #AmazingRace on campus.
Today marks the end of the add/drop period for courses, so student’s schedules should be set at this point. In addition, gradebooks are now accessible on MyWMS. We invite you to log in and monitor your student’s progress as the semester unfolds. Students will confirm with their teachers next week about their plans to take any year-long courses as honors courses.
Our first Project Block (A) of the year is Saturday morning. Of particular note this weekend, students in Studio Art will be experimenting with the medium of Paper Marbling. Our Western Religions class will be learning about two of the three Abrahamic religions by visiting All Saint's Church, the Episcopal Church in Littleton, and the local synagogue in Bethlehem. In English 3, students will engage in a “writing marathon” based on a prompt of their choice. Consistent with last year’s schedule, we do have sports as well on Saturday afternoon when we have Project Block.
Hopefully, at this point of the year, everyone has had a chance to read and review their WMS Community Handbook. We do ask that both parents and students sign an acknowledgement of that fact. Students will be doing this with their advisor next week. If you have not yet read the handbook, here is a link to it on our website. If you have any questions about this (or anything in the handbook), please don't hesitate to let me know. Thanks in advance.
Finally, if you have any feedback on Welcome Day or the beginning of school, we’d love to hear it. We’ve worked hard over the last few years fine-tuning Welcome Day, and our goal remains to make this process as easy and welcoming for students and families as possible. Your feedback has been, and will continue to be, essential to that process. So good or bad, if you have any thoughts to share from your experience (school forms, health forms, sign-ups, summer communication, Welcome Day itself, etc.), please let me know so we can include it in our planning process next year.
Thanks so much for sharing your children with us! It has been a great start, and we are super excited about this coming year. Have a great weekend!
- Nate
As we wrap up a whirlwind week here on campus, I have attached, as usual, the weekend calendar of events. While the last week of the term is always busy for students, the week that follows is typically the busiest one for teachers: finishing up grading, writing class and advisor comments and, for many, beginning to teach new semester courses. Despite the whole community’s high level of academic output these last two weeks, the energy remains high and super positive on campus as we head into another weekend – the number of announcements made at morning meeting this morning about activities happening this weekend was truly amazing. There is so much to do!
Since a number of activities last weekend were canceled or modified due to the snowy weather, some popular weekend trips (outlet shopping and sushi) are being offered again this weekend. This weekend features the opening of the Ice Castle in Lincoln and we’ll be there. There are only 4 of these events across the US and we are excited to be able to share in this amazing spectacle right in our own backyard. The photos they’ve shared from this in the past are truly amazing. Tonight, students form the first semester’s Introduction to Theater class will be performing 2 acts from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in our black box theater. Students will also have the opportunity to see some unique (Memento) and thought-provoking films (Truth) throughout the weekend and the DIY Club is learning how to make their own candles on Sunday. For the sports fans, there is a home (at Profile School) WMS boys basketball game Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon features viewing of the AFC Championship football game between the New England Patriots and some other team.
This week, WMS played host to some visitors from the La Cite Ecologique of NH, an Eco-Village located in far northern NH (even farther than us!). Three students and a teacher spent this week living on campus and attending classes, activities and sports. This past fall some of our students spent a week at the Eco-Village as part of a Field Course in sustainable living. It was great to learn more about these folks and to have them experience some of what WMS has to offer. Thanks to Renee and the Sustainability Club for helping to organize these exchanges.
Next Friday, we will host our second Cultural Event of the year. We are excited to have the Mango Groove Steel Drum Band back on campus for a show on Friday night. This exciting and engaging group has performed on campus before and their wonderful Caribbean-inspired sound is always a great way to enjoy a frosty New Hampshire evening. They will also be doing workshops in the afternoon with some of our students. If you are interested in joining us for this performance and/or the Community Dinner that precedes it, please RSVP to Jessica.
Starting today, students will be signing up with their advisors for their Spring Field Course. I shared the course descriptions last week and we are really excited about the breadth of unique offerings our faculty (and Ted!) have worked to put together. These unique and engaging experiential courses are oftentimes the jumpstart for a student’s deeper inquiry into an area of study. They also are simply amazing group experiences that students carry with them long after they leave here. Once they have all signed up, the work of preparation for these courses will begin throughout the month of February.
I know that as many of you are reading this (or at least skimming it), snow is bearing down on a large section of the east coast of the US. While it seems likely this storm will miss us up here in New England, our best wishes for safely riding out the storm go out to all of you in the southeast, Ohio Valley, and the mid-Atlantic. Our skiers and snowboarders could likely put all that snow to better use up here than they will in, say, Washington, but, hey, we don’t get to make the weather (not yet anyway – that does sound like a great LASR project, though).
As always, let me know if you have any questions about anything happening up here. Have a great weekend!
As we turn the corner at the halfway mark of the year, here is this weekend’s schedule and update.
Also attached to this email will find descriptions of each of our upcoming Spring Field Courses. These take place the second week of March, directly before we head out on Spring Break. We are very excited about the diverse and engaging options that we have for students this time around. Students will be signing up soon for these courses, so we wanted to share all of the offerings with you in advance of that. If you have any questions about the courses we are offering or about the Field Course program in general, please contact Ted.
Today marks the close of our first semester (hard to believe, but true nonetheless).
Shane is on duty this weekend and has promised to help students meet any last minute deadlines this weekend before the end of the semester. Grades and teacher comments will be available via MyWMS next Wednesday 1/20. Advisor comments will be added to these by the following Wednesday 1/27. As in the fall, advisors will also email these comments home to you as well. Shane has been working hard this past week to finalize schedules and they are almost completely set for the second semester. If you have any questions about courses for your student, please contact his/her advisor (or Shane who is always happy to help as well).
Regular classes for the second semester begin next Tuesday, since Monday we will celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a community. Students and faculty will take some time on this day to examine key political issues of the day and to learn about a number of influential “world changers” who have brought about positive change in their communities. The discussions and activities that take place on this day are always very moving and powerful and I look forward to being able to share with you some of what happens on campus that day. In advance of the day itself, this weekend will play host to the MLK Film Festival with important topical movies, ranging from Selma to Invictus, being shown and discussed all weekend long on campus. Thanks so much to Jim and Rachel and a number of motivated and engaged students who have helped put this day (and weekend) together.
We have been treated over this past week to an incredible variety of final presentations of students’ LASR projects. At morning meeting this week, we have heard about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the hip-hop industry. During Common Block and after dinner, we’ve seen presentations on the chemical properties of ceramic glazes, risk management in the outdoor industry and string theory (among many other topics). It is amazing to be able to see and share a little bit in all of this inquiry-driven work that students have been diving into all semester long. While the spectators only get a small glimpse into the work that students engage in throughout these projects, both the breadth and depth of these topics is truly profound and inspiring.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions about anything. We love to hear from you!
