Mission
To create and sustain a community of lifelong learners who are working together for the individual and common good.
OUR GUIDING ASSUMPTIONS/CORE BELIEFS
Learning is an essential and defining human activity that involves the whole person throughout life.
A learning environment should stimulate this powerful, inherently human desire to learn and to grow. Most learning in a lifetime takes place outside of school and one of the purposes of school is to prepare an individual to learn on his or her own.
A supportive and stimulating learning culture affirms intellectual tolerance and social unity.
Emphasis on community that occurs in all-school meeting, mixed-age tutorials, on camping trip and through the common language of French, validates shared experiences outside of the classroom.
The ability to foster growth in others is the essence of leadership.
Teaching and learning go hand-in-hand and most learning takes place within the context of relationships, including, but not limited to, faculty to students, students to students, faculty to faculty.
Learning involves taking responsibility to develop and exercise one’s personal “voice” by publicly expressing what one is thinking and feeling. We seek to affirm the unique voice—spoken, written, and artistic—of each member of the Waring community.
Learning compels us to use our knowledge responsibly in the service of multiple communities, both locally and globally.
The liberal arts are those branches of knowledge that contribute to the liberation of the mind and imagination through risk-taking and through the application of our knowledge of the world and of ourselves.
WARING SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY
Waring School Ethic
“We shape and maintain our culture, and it requires that we have integrity, that we be honest, that we be caring and that we be courageous.”
As individuals, each of us shoulders the personal responsibility for what we say and what we do, both in and out of school. Waring School’s Guiding Assumptions are based on personal integrity and the values of the school community. We believe that learning is an essential and defining human activity that involves the whole person throughout life. We believe that a supportive and stimulating learning culture affirms intellectual tolerance and social unity. As a community of individuals, we continually reaffirm our mission and core beliefs through our ethic of meaningful ritual and participation, genuine discussion, and authentic relationships.
Our community is built on trust. At Waring, we students, teachers, parents and administrators have a responsibility to make our school a creative, productive environment for social and intellectual growth. We shape and maintain our culture, and it requires that we have integrity, that we be honest, that we be caring and that we be courageous.
Both as members of the Waring community and as individuals, we agree to take active responsibility for our school. We should do nothing to damage the community and if we witness someone else damaging the community in any way, we should take action in an appropriate way. On the daily level, this means accepting personal responsibility for our actions—being respectful to others in what we do or say while encouraging others to do the same, respecting the physical campus and cleaning up after ourselves, using technology responsibly, being good mentors to younger students, and so on. When serious issues arise, we are called to be our best selves: to take positive action, to use our voice to speak up in an appropriate way. Although it is not easy to do, whenever possible, we should speak to the person(s) directly involved in any situation. We may also speak to a friend, a tutor, a parent, a teacher or administrator. It is our responsibility to speak up whenever there is a breach of trust at Waring. When we fail to do so, we widen the breach and we may be held accountable for our own inaction.
Developing and exercising our personal voice is a key part of Waring’s Guiding Assumptions. We are called to exercise our unique voices—spoken, written and artistic—which, in large part, is what we mean by being personally responsible for our daily actions. Cultivating this ethic allows us to act responsibly in service to both our school and global community.
Diversity Statement
For Waring School’s Diversity Statement, click here.
Faculty/Staff Behavioral Standards
Roles
- Model civility, accountability, engagement, preparation, empathy.
- Be consistent. Everything we do is a form of teaching.
- Be mindful that a healthy teacher/student relationship is centered on student growth; teachers/staff are not peers or parents.
- Communicate clearly, be transparent, set expectations, listen, observe.
- Embrace professionalism, set goals, ask for help, embrace feedback. Cultivate honest, collegial conversation with peers.
Boundaries
- Practice kindness, caring and engagement with our students; maintain a professional relationship with them, not a friendship.
- Be mindful of physical boundaries. Respond immediately and clearly if a student or faculty member violates a physical boundary.
- Refrain from intrusive conversations with students about their personal or social lives and likewise about ours.
- Maintain transparency in all relationships with school community members inside and outside of the classroom.
Power
- Be cognizant of the power and responsibility we hold as educators, exercising authority only for positive outcomes, while empowering others to succeed.
- Model collaboration and shared leadership whenever appropriate, recognizing the diversity of strengths and the individual voices in our students and colleagues.
- Be keenly aware of what others are expressing through their actions, words, and gestures.
- Be truthful and honest with ourselves and with all those in the Waring community.
Accountability
- Act consistently with the expectations of the Waring Ethic and actively support others as they seek to do so.
- Communicate concerns about possible misconduct (to each other as appropriate) and to the designated contacts.
- Accept responsibility for the impact of our actions on students and others.
- Seek and accept assistance for workplace issues before they impact students or colleagues.
Nondiscrimination Policy
We member schools of the Association of Independent Schools in New England reaffirm our longstanding policy of nondiscriminatory admission of students. We admit students of any race, color, religious affiliation, national and ethnic origin and qualified handicapped students to all rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at our schools. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, disability status, gender identity or expression, religious affiliation, or national and ethnic origin in the administration of our educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school administered programs. Applications for Fall 2022 admission are now being received. Information and school catalogues may be obtained by calling the school.