A combination of people, place, and program, Middle School Advisory is much more than a homeroom.
While it serves as a home base, a space and a group of people to start and end your day with, Advisory also provides support, skill development, mentoring, camaraderie, and laughs. For many middle schoolers, it becomes a second home. Just as important, our students form strong bonds with their teachers, who are experts on the transition from tween to teen and who find mentoring middle schoolers an absolute joy.
Each year’s advisories—made up of 10 classmates and a teacher—are carefully crafted by faculty who know individual students and the grade’s social dynamics.
Every day begins in advisory with a 10- to 15-minute check-in and ends with STAT (Student Teacher Appointment Time), when you can study, unwind, and get help with schoolwork or guidance from your advisor.
Our advisory program is woven into Middle School life, hourlong lunch/recess fosters independence and self-determination, and we offer so many fun activities, like overnight trips, talent shows, a student-faculty basketball game, arts day, and author visits… even a Summer In December barbecue.
The Saints Advisory Program
Tuesday brings the 40-minute Saints Advisory Program, affectionately known as SAP. What happens in SAP varies, but it’s always designed to build character, leadership, citizenship, and community. The key focus areas of SAP are:
Empathy, inclusion, and belonging—activities from Saints Dialogue to coffeehouses (coffee, no; cookies and lemonade, yes) that encourage listening, open-mindedness, and seeing from different perspectives in a safe space.
Digital citizenship and online decision-making.
Student-led conferences, where you take responsibility by leading meetings with your advisor and parents, and set your own goals.
Bonding activities—puzzles to solve, games to play, and trips to take… together.
