Each student is placed in an advisory with 10-12 students and one faculty member. The advisor has many roles: mentor, coach, and advocate. The advisor also serves as the first point of contact for families throughout the year and ensures that all advisees are well-known and well-supported. The advisory curriculum has three primary strands: Social and Emotional Learning, Community Building with a commitment to and focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work, and Academic Oversight.
Empowering Upper School Learning
Field students thrive when engaged in authentic learning experiences, both independent and collaborative, developing a sense of agency for their learning and the ability to confidently take action, bringing their ideas into reality. Faculty encourage students to take intellectual risks, embrace mistakes, and grapple with complex problems that don’t have easy solutions. Students experience all this as members of an inclusive and welcoming community that celebrates individuals with a shared sense of purpose.
"Across all their learning experiences, our students strive to create meaning and connection among their learning, actions, and the world."
Upper School Curriculum
The upper school curriculum has constantly evolving courses and learning experiences. In their Senior year, students can pursue more individualized pathways. Students choose from upper-level academic elective courses designed to develop true depth of learning across disciplines. All students participate in one season of interscholastic sports per year or take a PE elective to meet their athletics requirement.
College Counseling
Preparing students to reach the next stage of their development is at the core of every interaction at Field. Our robust College Counseling program expertly demystifies the college process, and our counselors guide our students and their families through each step, ensuring students are prepared, informed, and connected.
Community
Upper school students are encouraged to take on leadership roles that develop essential life skills such as teamwork, responsibility, and resourcefulness. They gain confidence in collaborating with their peers, advocating for themselves and others, and presenting or speaking in public settings. Students may take on leadership roles through Affinity Groups, Student Government, Head’s Advisory Council, Student Ambassadors, clubs, serving as athletic team captains, and more. Community is valued at Field, and we begin each year with grade-level retreats. These day-long excursions help students and advisors get to know each other better and set the tone for working collectively and collaboratively throughout the year. For example, 9th graders participate in a curated scavenger hunt on the National Mall, while the 10th grade students go whitewater rafting. In 11th grade, students build community through shared experiences such as roller skating, pickleball, or ping pong tournaments. And, finally, during senior year, students take a 3-day trip to a camp on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay where they connect, relax, set goals for their year, and reflect on their journeys as Field students.
Senior Capstone Internship
The Senior Capstone Internship program empowers students to pursue in-depth, self-directed exploration and learning under the guidance of professionals in the community. The Capstone Internship program sends seniors out into the world for three weeks in May, where they share and expand on their learning, forging strong connections between what they have learned at Field and the wider world.
Each senior charts their own Capstone path while working closely with their faculty advisor and Internship Director to identify, develop, and execute their unique experience, including planning and presenting their culminating project to a jury of faculty and peers.
Upper School Intersession
Intersession, a two-week program in January, allows students to explore their interests. Students choose between 10-15 immersive courses, travel programs, or internships.
- Immersive Courses are designed to build essential skills, including critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration in service of developing solutions and a final product with community partners.
- Travel Programs are designed to empower students to step outside their comfort zones and embrace daily challenges by utilizing creative problem-solving skills and learning to listen to and collaborate with others. Upper school students can choose from domestic and international travel programs that include learning more about Civil Rights as they travel through historic locations in the American South or travel to Spain to immerse themselves in the region's culture, history, people, and food.
- Internships allow students to meaningfully engage in the working world and gain practical skills outside the classroom. Students are fully immersed in their host organization’s mission and goals and complete an applicable project for the organization. Students have interned side-by-side with surgeons, engineers, politicians, lawyers, artists, scientists, business owners, journalists, economists, entrepreneurs, community leaders, and nonprofit organizations with varying missions.
Find Out More About Intersessions At Field