Schools that teach sixth through twelfth graders present a great opportunity: high schoolers can be mentors and role models for younger students. However, this isn’t a bond that is magically created when students go to school together. Instead, it is something that happens when older and younger students care about connecting with each other. 

Seabury has traditions that help us to create this connection. We have Secret Seahawks, where new students have a chance to quickly become friends with an older student. We also have advising groups, where students in different grades have a chance to bond with each other, and the all-school play, where students in a range of grades work together as a team.

High schoolers and middle schoolers mutually supporting each other is the only way these traditions can make an important difference, and this can start small. If middle schoolers try to learn the names of the high schoolers, and vice versa, then we are already more connected. All students can try to have at least a short conversation with students in older or younger grades. These small gestures will help students feel like they know each other better, and it will help middle schoolers be able to look up to the high schoolers––and the high schoolers can learn from the middle schoolers too.

Taking advantage of the mentorship opportunities Seabury provides is not that hard. All it takes is for every student to take steps, both big and small, to get to know each other.