“Caring participation in the world” is a cornerstone of Waynflete’s mission. The global citizenship courses offered by Students Shoulder to Shoulder provide students and faculty with the opportunity to learn what sustainable development looks like in our global community. Courses take place in both the U.S. and international locations and are facilitated by our longstanding NGO partners. Many projects focus on environmental projects that are consistent with the UN Millennium goals.
Waynflete was the subject of a feature article in the November 2018 issue of Old Port Magazine.
Click here to read the article.
The Upper School’s Active Community Engagement group has participated in monthly breakfast shifts at Preble Street Resource Center for three years. Shifts accommodate between 5-8 students. Students also work with Furniture Friends (a new nonprofit that helps distribute gently used furniture to those in need) and South Portland Rotary Club (on Bug Light upkeep and Christmas tree sales in Mill Creek).
When you boil it down, what is the distilled essence of the Waynflete experience?
Who are we, what do we value, and how do we live out our values on a daily basis?
What is our core identity as a learning community?
The Waynflete faculty and administration has undertaken the task of answering those questions. While abstract to some, they are vital to those of us who work at the school and to the families who entrust their children to our care. As an independent school, Waynflete gets to choose its approach to education. Families in Southern Maine get to choose whether or not the experience we offer is right for their children.
This semester, in the Advanced Spanish Elective Actualidades (“Current Events”), we have been reading, discussing, and sometimes debating topics we have read on international news sites from around the Spanish-speaking world. Roundtable discussions in the target language, student-led discussions, and moments of advanced grammar instruction (when they arise) are daily happenings in the class.
Thanks to “Print: A Bookstore” for hosting Waynflete’s first Book Bash, which was a smashing success!
Our entire seventh grade spent advising period on Friday making winter cards for their friends at Head Start, whom they will visit on Tuesday.
Our relationship with the Greater Portland Head Start program has emerged over the past twenty years. Each seventh grade homeroom builds a relationship with students in a Head Start classroom. The students meet, play, and read together each month, starting in November. The seventh grade also organizes a Book Drive and bowl-a-thon to raise funds for literacy materials for the program.
Click here for the Forecaster article.
During the week of exams (Thursday, December 14 – Wednesday, December 20), students are only required to be in school during their exam periods. They may be on campus when they do not have exams if they choose. Please make plans with your child regarding your expectations for where s/he should be when not taking an exam. If your child will be absent from an exam, please follow the usual procedure for reporting an absence.
Click here for easily downloadable and printable schedule.
For make-up exams or exam conflicts, students should contact Peter Hamblin at or at extension 1230.
Please note: Weather could alter the exam schedule so that rescheduled exams could run as late as 12:30 on Wednesday, 12/20. Please do not plan to travel before then.
In case even the thought of mid-term exams is casting a long shadow over your household, here are links to two ideas about how to manage stress productively. The first is a TED talk by health psychologist Kelly McGonical entitled, How to Make Stress Your Friend. The second is an article by Gavi King ’15, whose article, Relax, Silly: Advice for Exam Week, which first appeared in the Waynflete Flyer in the spring of 2014. Each offers wise counsel.
Niche, a website that provides information on K-12 schools, has released their 2018 rankings naming Waynflete the Best Private High School in Maine.
The ranking is based on rigorous analysis of key statistics and reviews by students and parents. Ranking factors include SAT/ACT scores, the quality of colleges that students consider, student-teacher ratio, private school ratings, and more. Data is sourced from the U.S. Department of Education, Niche users, and the schools directly.
Great turnout for the first night of the Waynflete Book Bash at Print: A Bookstore on Congress Street.
And there’s more to come this week at Print:
On November 7, K-1 students participated in Election Day by voting on a special drink for snack. The choices were apple juice, grape juice, and lemonade. On Monday, students practiced filling in ballots and learned about the voting process. On Election Day, Diane (the Lower School Assistant) came into K-1 to run a polling station in the Pond Habitat. Each student was able to cast a ballot and get an “I Voted” sticker. At noon, we had a K-1 general meeting to tally the votes and discuss how to win and lose appropriately to make the whole community feel good. The race was tight, but in the end lemonade won. On Wednesday, students were offered lemonade to have with snack.
Welcome to the Lower School section of the Waynflete Wire, where you will find snapshots of day to day in the Lower School. I hope that through these glimpses you will see how your children engage with the program, one another, in the community, and in their learning. These snapshots aim to exemplify how our school’s mission comes to life in their lives. Enjoy!
Warmly,
Anne Hopkins
The fall season was an exciting one for the Flyers. Boys and girls soccer made the state tournament and both cross-country teams qualified for the state meet. Field hockey completed the third season as a co-op with Maine Girls Academy. Boys cross-country was awarded the MPA Good Sportsmanship Award and Henry Spritz ’19 captured the Class C cross-country individual state championship.
Boys soccer had a final record of 10-4-2 and won the Western Maine Conference regular season class C championship. The Flyers did not lose a class C game until they fell to Maranacook in double overtime in the Class C semis. After close losses to Class B playoff squads Freeport, Cape, and York, the Flyers earned a home Class C quarterfinal against Mt. Abram. The Flyers topped the Roadrunners in overtime and advanced to the semis. The season came to an end at Maranacook with the double overtime 2-1 loss (the Black Bears went on to win the Class C state championship). All Conference first team honors went to seniors Ilyas Abdi and Christian Brooks, and sophomores Luca Antolini and Askar Houssein. Senior keeper Max Winson earned WMC honorable mention. Brooks and Abdi also made the Maine Soccer Coaches All-Star team. (more…)
Cast and Crew gathered last Tuesday for an enthusiastic first read and sing through of our winter musical, THE DROWSY CHAPERONE. This hilarious “meta” musical simultaneously pays tribute to and pokes fun at, the great American tradition of musical theater.
Don’t miss it!
Performances: February 8 – 10 at 7:00pm – Franklin Theater.
It looks like this chaperone is NOT very “drowsy.”
As sixth graders undertake their own indoor archaeological dig, they were treated to a visit from Bowdoin archaeologist Scott MacEachern who spoke to them about sites he has excavated in Cameroon. Not only did they have the opportunity to ask dozens of questions, but they were able to touch and hold 1,500-year-old artifacts!
On the Friday before Thanksgiving Break, the entire seventh grade went on a walk around the Western Promenade. One by one, walking separately, students slowly and silently walked around the loop and contemplated something that they are grateful for in their lives. When they returned each student individually shared their gratitudes with a teacher.
In other moments of gratitude, our entire community gathered to present 2,289 pounds of food to the Board Chair of Wayside Food Services, John Leeming. We shared words of thanks with one another, including:
I am thankful for being able to get all that I need.
I am thankful for the ocean and the freeness of the waves.
I am thankful for having food on our table everyday.
Look here for more information about acts of kindness within our community.
Thanksgiving break may have already started for some, but these juniors stayed late today to present the results of their studies on the geological features of the moon and asteroids to our liaison at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.
Middle School Mentoring is an Upper School activity that offers an opportunity for high schoolers to create and foster relationships with middle schoolers, helping them navigate the unique challenges of middle school life. The leaders this year, Musaid Mohammed ’19 and Marady Parr ’19, lead a group of seventeen mentors on a retreat with the entire seventh grade. During the retreat, students played games that helped them learn language for body image stereotypes and social media platforms, and then they watched two film clips that address these topics. The retreat culminated with small-group discussions led by the mentoring group.
