Enjoy this video, created by John Rice '70, about the first half of the first cruise of our 2014 Caribbean Studies Program. The students are learning about their gear, perfecting their snorkeling skills and now getting into the research portion of their trip. Stay tuned for another video later this week.
Topics: Tabor Academy, Tabor Boy, Student Life, REEF
It has been an exciting start to 2014 here at Tabor. The Caribbean Studies Program has just begun in earnest today with the first group of students onboard Tabor Boy heading off to an adventure of a lifetime.
Topics: Student Life
Congratulations are in order! Tabor athletes and coaches have concluded a terrific season of play. I hope you will enjoy this quick video of some of the action.
Topics: Athletics, Student Life
We have just enjoyed a two-day event focused on leadership for our entire school community. Students and faculty, led by alumni and friends and special guests, learned the value they can bring to any situation to make it better.
Topics: Student Life
Twenty Spanish students are becoming Seawolves! Our visitors, who arrived one week ago, are part of what is becoming an every other year exchange between Tabor and a school in Spain located in Begues, near Barcelona. They are with us for two weeks.
This being our second exchange with this same school, it is fun to see the Tabor students who traveled to Spain on the last trip welcome cousins and friends of friends they met in 2012.
Our day families have been gracious enough to act as host families to the students showing them American family life, while their Tabor student partners are adopting these students into their every activity. The school has planned trips to Boston and Providence, and yesterday they visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum to learn about our local history. Some fun social time has been planned as well with a pizza and movie night, skating and more. So far, so good!
Not only have they come at the most beautiful time of the year, but also there is so much happening at Tabor right now for our guests to enjoy. Theatre, music and dance all this week. Holderness Day on Saturday with a pep rally on Friday night. Then on Sunday night and Monday, they will have an opportunity to develop some lifelong leadership skills at our Graboys Leadership Symposium (more later on that!). These kids have come at just the best possible time to be a Seawolf!
We hope they are enjoying Tabor, and we look forward to our students chance to explore Spanish culture when they arrive in Begues in June!
Topics: Tabor Academy, Cultural exchange, Student Life
I wanted to share this lovely poem Tricia Smith, faculty, wrote to the Class of 2013 on the eve of their graduation. I hope some in the class will remember it and realize the importance of the connections they made here. To me, it nicely illustrates the kind of relationships our teachers and students share and the depth of the work that transpires here by and with our students. Enjoy!
Topics: Student Life, Alumni
Each spring, students have the opportunity to apply for a travel grant from Tabor Academy to support their interest in language or cultural study. The grant is made possible through the generosity of The Shattuck Family, who created this opportunity ten years ago based on their gratitude for their son’s experiences and awakening to the wider world through his study of foreign languages at Tabor.
Topics: Tabor Academy, Student Life, Global Citizens
By Joe Doggett, Director of Studies
Advanced Placement (AP) courses are offered in 21 different courses at Tabor and remain popular with our students as a way to challenge themselves academically with a college level curriculum. Results from this spring’s AP testing have been released and Tabor students have continued to fare very well on these tests.
Advanced Placement Tests are scored 1-5, with a score of 3 or better indicating a readiness for college level work. Scores of 4-5 are when a college, if they allow AP credits to transfer at all, will award those credits and free students to move to more challenging courses as they enter Freshman year.
The general trend over the years of more 4’s and 5’s and fewer 1’s and 2’s continued to hold true for 2013. The percentage of students scoring 3 or better (the accepted benchmark for colleges acknowledging credit-worthy performance) stands at an all-time high this year at 82% out of 184 student tested. The most popular subjects for students to test in are US History and Chemistry with an average score of 3.4 and 3.6 respectively. The highest average scores (a 3.7 or better) were achieved in English Language, Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Statistics, Biology, Physics B (non-calculus based), Physics C M (calculus-based mechanics) and French.
Particular kudos go to the students and teachers of the Calculus AB and BC courses: 22 out of 23 students in BC Calculus earned a 4 or a 5 (20 5’s!), while 31 out of 35 in AB Calculus earned a 4 or a 5 (22 5’s). That is impressive.
Well done Tabor students and Class of 2013! You raised the bar yet again!
Topics: Tabor Academy, Advanced Placement, Student Life
The Class of 2013 has graduated, and our students have had their "moving up" ceremony which crowns new leaders and physically moves them from their old chapel seats up to their new views as Seniors, Juniors and Sophomores. While always a fun service, this year a little history was made.
Topics: Student Life
It is the sprint to the finish! The seniors are in their last week. They completed an excellent round of Senior Project presentations last Friday, and closed the athletic season on Saturday with the boys first boat in crew earning a third place finish in the finals of the New Englands, and the girls earning fifth place. We have enjoyed many concerts and recitals, one act plays and more this month through their energy and enthusiasm. It has been a wonderful whirlwind! And this week it is coming to a close. It feels sad, but we are also so grateful and proud of their accomplishments.
Topics: Student Life
Today is Community Service Day!
Director of Service Learning, Lauren Corliss, pictured above, has accomplished a tremendous feat! There are over 400 students out in the wider Southcoast community right now cleaning up beaches and roadways, assisting the elderly, tutoring children, planting and creating gardens, painting and beautifying parks, repairing sports equipment and facilities for our local rec department, delivering clothes to the needy, sorting books for a used book drive at the local library, helping at the recycling center, visiting the elderly, even baking and delivering cookies! Lauren uncovered options, sold our volunteer service aptitudes to agency's, and helped us to arrange the transportation to all these sites. No small feat!
Each advisor group was asked to come up with a project and work together to accomplish their goals today. Additionally, our international student community, in celebration of International Week, recruited our newly enrolled international students half a world away to join our community's service efforts today and share with us what they have accomplished.
Of course, the students are excited to do something different on a beautiful spring day, but chances are it will mean much more than an alternative to class. Learning how to help, knowing you can, doing good just because you can, these are empowering life lessons. They are important lessons for all of us.
I encourage you to join us today and comment here or to add photos to our Tabor Academy Alumni Facebook page of the ways you work to serve your community. Tabor alumni are incredibly generous with their talents and it is an important part of the legacy and reach of our school.
Here's to the collective good Tabor Academy can spread worldwide!
Happy Service Day!
Gifts to Give is one of our service partners year-round. They collect used toys and household items and recondition them so that they maybe given with pride to needy families. They incorporate many volunteers, adults and children alike, in their joyful mission of service and recycling.
Topics: Tabor Academy, Student Life, Diversity, Service Learning
