Festivals
Our regular festivals are feasts which allow us to celebrate key moments in our life together.
Feasting is an essential part to being human because it reminds us that we do not live or educate children simply for the sake of work, productivity, or usefulness. Rather, there is a very human joy and delight to be found in sitting down together with family and friends, enjoying the fruits of your labors, and joyfully giving thanks for what you have. Feasting is also an essential part of being human because it reminds us that we do not live for the sake of ourselves—feasts are meant to be shared together. Finally, feasting is an essential part of being human—and educating children— because it reminds us that we exist for the sake of something higher than ourselves, mainly the God to whom we give gratitude.
Literature Festival
Literature festival is an opportunity for the whole school to celebrate a particularly excellent author work of literature. We celebrate figures like Homer, Lewis, Tolkien, and Twain as part of the great body of literature that has been passed down to us and shapes us as people who are more truly and fully human.
Harvest Festival
Our annual Harvest Festival is an opportunity for our whole community to gather together to give thanks for his provision in our lives—especially through others who have served us. We celebrate our parents, grandparents, pastors, and servicemen and women who make a school like ours possible through song, recitation, and food.
Lessons and Carols
The tradition of lessons and carols services goes back to Truro Cathedral in Cornwall in the late 19th century. The service follows the story of Scripture, from the fall of mankind through the promise of a messiah, all the way up to advent or coming of Christ. Following that tradition, our students gather together to recite a series of Scripture “lesson” as well as sing traditional Christmas carols which celebrate the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, after which we share in food, drinks, and fellowship.
Evening of Excellence
The Evening of Excellence is our final festival of the year and offers our students and faculty an opportunity to demonstrate to community what they have learned over the school year as each lower school grade and our upper school choir performs. We also give out awards for years of study and service, as well as our capstone awards for students that have particularly embodied the school’s vision and mission.
Lower School Class Festivals
These lower school class festivals allow individual grades to celebrate the particular period of history that they are studying in a given year. Dressing up in costumes appropriate to that era of history, students play games, do crafts, and share a meal together—all of which allow them to imagine what it was like to live during that time in history.
