A Year in Review

5/30/2014

As the 2013—14 school year draws to a close we are eager to share some of the notable accomplishments by our student body:

The new middle school facility has proven to be everything that we hoped. If you have not yet seen the facility, please don’t hesitate to let me know so we can take a lap. The new synthetic play field has been a fan-favorite among middle school students in the morning, and has been a great resource for physical education and Pursuit, as has the playground. The Pursuit area is much brighter, more welcoming and age-appropriate.
We had another incredibly successful year with regard to high school placement. Students will be attending the following schools in the fall:

Ensworth (20)
Montgomery Bell Academy (9)
Harpeth Hall (7)
University School of Nashville (5)
St. Cecilia’s (1)
St. Andrews School, Delaware (1)
Webb School, Bell Buckle, Tenn. (1)
Big Picture High School (1)
Brentwood High School (1)
33 students were accepted to every school to which they applied and 8 students applied to only one school, and were accepted.

Thirty of our graduates started in kindergarten.
The fall semester saw an incredible production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat and the all-school musical, Seussical, was equally wonderful with 130 students in the cast and crew. Five of our students won awards at the Scholastic Art Awards—certainly an impressive accomplishment!

In athletics we had another successful year:

Girls Cross-Country, HVAC Division A Champions
Boys Cross-Country, HVAC Division A Runners-Up
Girls and Boys Soccer, HVAC Division A Runners-Up
Wrestling, 3rd place in the HVAC
Girls Basketball, GNAC Champions
Girls and Boys Swimming, HVAC Combined Champions in the inaugural HVAC meet

In addition, nine athletes won individual championships in the sports of wrestling, swimming, tennis, and cross-country.

As proud as we are of the records, we are equally proud that 96 percent of our students competed on a team, 91 percent were two-season athletes and 46 percent were four-season athletes.

And we have even more to be proud of:

We sent a six-member Chess team to the state championships, and they took third place in the state. They went on to compete at the national level in Dallas, Texas, and out of 300 competitors in each division, Harding players came home with medals and four individual trophies for placements in the top 35.
As the one-to-one laptop initiative in the middle school has been a significant change and a positive success, this year we added a new laptop for every fourth and fifth grader for their use while at school. Additionally, we added a class set of iPads in every classroom, K—3 this year, that have very successfully been used to enhance the curriculum.
We had 13 seventh grade students receive state recognition through the Duke Talent Identification Program for their success on the high school ACT. One student received national recognition, which put him in the top three percent of students in the nation.
We had 47 seventh and eighth graders receive recognition on the national language exams including 1st- and 2nd-place state winners in French, 2nd place in the state in Spanish and four students who received Summa Cum Laude recognition in Latin.
We had another very positive year in admissions and will likely open the year with our second highest historical enrollment with 75 new students from 35 different schools, 18 zip codes and five states. We also had our lowest historical attrition rate, at four percent.

Whether building a garden that is maintained and nourished by the fifth graders or incorporating robotics into the curriculum, it has been an exciting year by all measures. We are now focused on our planning to make 2014—2015 the best year possible!

Best wishes for a restful summer,

Ian

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