A New Focus on Student Wellness
By Francesca Pileggi ‘06, School Counselor and Director of Wellness
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rchmere is widely recognized for its academic excellence and ability to cultivate intellectual creativity through its rigorous academic program. However, during my semesterly meetings with students, I repeatedly hear a different response when I ask students their favorite thing about Archmere. During these meetings, the word community comes up so often; it’s no surprise it’s one of Archmere’s core values.
The Nest provides a variety of student-focused, datadriven programming to nurture students’ overall physical, social, and emotional wellbeing and provide a place for students to recharge and gain coping strategies.
I believe that connection is a large part of what enables students to succeed in their academic pursuits. Small class sizes, devoted faculty, and supportive peers contribute to an Archmere community unlike any other. Yet, to me, Archmere is so much more than the exceptional academic learning within its classrooms. It’s the students who help their classmates on crutches without being asked. It’s the invested teachers who genuinely care about their students’ success both on and off-campus. It’s the senior who sits with the ninth-grader eating lunch alone on the first day of school.
This year, I am excited and grateful to have an opportunity to deliberately enrich the connections and resources that already exist within this robust community through The Nest. Learning and growing cannot adequately occur when students are not physically and emotionally healthy. As a college preparatory institution, we also recognize that transitioning to college involves more than just academic preparedness. We are invested in our students’ overall well-being. We want them to be the best scholars and the best artists, athletes, sons/daughters, musicians, siblings, friends, and human beings they can be. The idea for The Nest was born out of a conversation between Archmere principal Katie Thiel and me about Archmere’s commitment to student wellness. We wanted to develop a program that intentionally invested in students’ physical, social, and emotional well-being through various avenues. 26
The Archmerean • fall 2021
