Published in: Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine - September 2024, p. 12 & Haymarket Gainesville Lifestyle Magazine - September 2024, p. 10

“We can all help our students develop the skills and tools that help them become well-rounded, warm-hearted adults.” —Dr. Amrit Daryanani

Schools are associated first and foremost with academic preparation—but in both schools and families, an increasingly examined subject today is how we balance the changing world, a college-prep academic program, and the mental and emotional wellbeing of our students.  Where and how does student wellbeing intersect with other components of a contemporary and whole education?

For Dr. Amrit Daryanani, Director of Student Services and Wellness at Wakefield School in The Plains and known there as “Dr. D,” the role for wellbeing is not to intersect with other components, but to surround them.

Published in: Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine - May 2024, p. 10 & Haymarket Gainesville Lifestyle Magazine - May 2024, p. 14

“While I don’t plan on going into a career focused on my independent-study topic, I have thoroughly enjoyed this process and I hope to bring this work into my future interests.” —Wakefield Junior Hayden Faulkner

High school students, it turns out, can be not so very different from pre-schoolers in this wonderful way. In other words, fill a school with the right environment, the right tools and resources, and the opportunity to explore, and you will quickly see that high schoolers, too, want to know! Often the best thing we adults can do is get out of their way, too. And the perfect opportunity to see this phenomenon at work is for a school to make a robust independent study option available to its high school students.

Published in: Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine - April 2024, p. 18 & Haymarket Gainesville Lifestyle Magazine - April 2024, p. 18

In keeping with the value Wakefield places on student voice and initiative, it was student and prospective-student interest that provided the initial push towards both sports [Squash & Equestrian]...

Just as student voice and agency brought these two off-the-beaten-path varsity sports to Wakefield, student passion now keeps them thriving, to the benefit not only of experienced athletes pleased to find them available, but also of the many who have discovered them as beginners and never left.

Published in: Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine - March 2024, p. 14 & Haymarket Gainesville Lifestyle Magazine - March 2024, p. 10

“The idea [is] not just traveling to be a tourist, but traveling to say, ‘What can we learn about this? and What can we learn about our world around us?’” —Casey Carter

According to Casey Carter, faculty member and international studies leader at Wakefield School in The Plains, one of the many changes to which schools have had to adjust in a post-COVID world is the drop in international students seeking to attend secondary school abroad. And that, he says, has an effect on students here: How to ensure that our students continue to “have the opportunity to interact with other cultures, other parts of the world, other perspectives?”

As is often the case, his search for solutions is yielding ideas for Wakefield that go well beyond the previous status quo.

Published in: Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine - December 2023, p. 10 & Haymarket Gainesville Lifestyle Magazine - December 2023, p. 10

Wakefield’s mission is “to foster the character, curiosity, and clear voices the world needs.” The bold sense of adventure involved in confidently trying out a new sport, and knowing you will be supported, is an integral part of the Wakefield Way.

At Wakefield School in The Plains, learning to take risks in an environment of safety and support is a core element of becoming capable, confident, and independent—in the classroom and beyond. This belief underpins the “Try something new!” ethos of Wakefield’s Middle School athletics program, in which every student participates in a sport each season of 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. 

Published in: Virginia Living Magazine - December 2023 Issue

Now in his sixth year at Wakefield School in The Plains, Virginia, and his 18th overall year of teaching, John Pennisi has seen things come full circle. Many of his current senior thesis students know him very well; that’s because he taught a lot of them in the 7th and 8th grades.

“I remember them fondly from Middle School,” he says, “and they’ve grown into such mature and passionate young men and women who challenge me and make me better.”

Published in: Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine - November 2023, p. 16 & Haymarket Gainesville Lifestyle Magazine - November 2023, p. 18

“Put down the electronics and go old-fashioned: read a book together and have a conversation! I want us to not lose the beauty of connection that can happen when you have hands on the book in front of you, on the couch, with your child.” —Mrs. Sabrina Finn

According to Mrs. Sabrina Finn, one of two first-grade teachers at Wakefield School in The Plains, Virginia, “We don’t call them ‘sight words’ anymore—we don’t want students to look at a word and try to memorize what it is. We are breaking down the sounds!”

Like her fellow first-grade teacher Ms. Kathryn Mullett, Mrs. Finn spends a lot of time talking about and playing with sounds as part of her students’ earliest literacy lessons.

Published in: Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine - October 2023, p. 12 & Haymarket Gainesville Lifestyle Magazine - October 2023, p. 12

“What we want in the end is for students to, first, develop curiosity; then to know how to find out more on what they want to know about; and then to be able to do something meaningful with what they’ve learned. This is not just for Wakefield—this is for everyone. And what a beautiful world it will be when every kid has that chance!” —Kathryn Mullett

Decades of research show that a child’s earliest experiences with books and language are predictive of future reading and learning successes. While formally instructing ever-younger children in reading is not developmentally appropriate, Ms. Mullett says the teaching of “early literacy” should begin at birth.