from the headmaster As I take a moment to reflect on this past year, I continue to remain grateful and inspired by the loyalty, the generosity, and the many ways our community finds to support our School and expand our students’ opportunities and growth. Each of you help make Rumsey Hall a nurturing, supportive environment where our students’ full range of abilities, creative gifts and compassion can grow. Our Mission and School values of Honesty, Kindness and Respect guide all that we do here at Rumsey Hall. Each day our work is dedicated to educating the whole child. We are committed to ensuring that each of our student’s experience here at Rumsey Hall is guided by the practice of effort, not the expectation of perfection. We value equally the lessons that take place inside our classrooms as well as outside of them. This past year, we continued to add and improve the educational opportunities we provide here at Rumsey Hall School. What follows is a brief report of these opportunities that your generosity allowed for. Additional playground equipment was added to the new Explorer Dome, which provides students of all ages an opportunity to test and develop their gross motor skills in countless ways. There is also a new outdoor learning area that provides students with a space in which to study, learn and explore their environment. This space includes a weather station, raised garden-beds, bird houses and feeders, tables and seating. As a school, we continued our speakers, performances and weekend programming. The following are highlights of those visits to our campus last year: Richard Guerry, the founder of the Institute for Responsible Online and Cell-Phone Communication (IROC2). He is a nationally renowned expert in educating students and parents on the relevant issues surrounding digital responsibility and solutions. He offered guidance on how to prevent and avoid digital pitfalls through a dynamic and age appropriate program. Mark Tyler Nobleman joined us to offer creative writing workshops with our Upper School English classes. He is the author of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, and Brave Like My Brother. The Viola Question, the premiere improv comedy group at Yale University, performed for our students, as did Take Five, Kenyon College’s a cappella group, where May Chen ’12, was one of the performers. Weekend Art Workshops were offered on Sunday afternoons to expand our arts offerings and weekend activities. These workshops included jewelry making, metal shop, and basic crafts. Additionally, in these weekend workshops, a faculty and student led effort was initiated to create greeting cards for hospitalized children.
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