Where Inquisitive Minds Meet a Rigorous Curriculum

Academics

Where Inquisitive Minds Meet a Rigorous Curriculum

The culture of excellence at Westminster School begins in the classroom. Westminster’s academic program has been rooted in the belief that young people are best prepared to move on to college and then out into the world when they start with a broad liberal arts education. We want our students to graduate with the knowledge and skills they need to achieve success in college and beyond.

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ARMOUR ACADEMIC CENTER

Fostering Academic Excellence

Westminster’s commitment to excellence in its academic program is visually apparent in the magnificent Armour Academic Center located at the center of the campus. The academic center was designed for the 21st century, proclaiming to everyone that the life of the mind is, was and always will be at the heart of the Westminster experience.

Classes are small by design, averaging 12 students per class, and meet four times a week in a rotating block schedule: three 50-minute blocks and one 60-minute block. Classes are held six days a week, but only in the morning on Wednesdays and Saturdays. For those students who want to pursue the most challenging curricular options, there are 23 Advanced Placement® offerings, as well as other honors courses and independent study opportunities in every discipline.

We expect all of our students to dive wholeheartedly into our rigorous academic program. But students aren’t working alone. Westminster’s courses are taught by teachers who are passionate about their work, teachers who publish books of poems, choreograph innovative dance pieces for professional troupes and author articles about social entrepreneurship. Westminster teachers conduct environmental science research in Simsbury, climate change research in Costa

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Rica, perform their own musical compositions and have their own art openings — all pursuing excellence in their fields. But these are also teachers who make themselves available day and night for extra help and enrichment activities.

The curriculum is demanding, but also interesting with assignments that stress the myriad of ways in which academic subjects are interrelated, and ask students to use the traditional resources of the library as well as all the latest technology.

Westminster’s traditional liberal arts program provides students with a curriculum that stretches and inspires them to become lifelong learners. Armour Academic Center is a place for hard work and big dreams. It’s a place that was purposefully designed to foster intellectual venturing. All those windows let in the light, true, but they also open up young minds to the world of ideas and experiences that lies beyond Williams Hill.

gund reading room

m “We expose our students to a wide range of methods and technologies used by scientists. This stimulates them in a very direct way, enhancing skills and knowledge that will be useful as students move into college and postgraduate studies.”

bill sistare

science teacher, academic dean and second girls’ ice hockey coach