Harley’s Approach to College Counseling
“Club Rush” is an afternoon every fall in the Upper School when students have the chance to sign up for clubs for the year, and each year it is very different because new clubs are created based on student initiative and enthusiasm.
Each and every year, students at The Harley School participate in HAC Athletics, and their success continues to be impressive, both as students and athletes. Our athletic program is an integral part of Harley, teaching student-athletes invaluable lessons about teamwork, time management, persistence, and competition. Our program allows them to develop physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally as they represent their school on and off the field. They grow, mature, and work hard to be the best teammate they can, while creating lifelong memories with teammates who often remain friends for life. 
Our Upper School is filled with formal and informal opportunities for students to take on leadership roles. Whether following passions or learning new skills, student-driven opportunities take many shapes.
Unlike this class, death is not an elective. Although it is one of two universal human experiences, our culture often ignores, denies, or misconstrues the true nature of death and dying. What happens when we bear witness to this natural process in the cycle of life and develop our ability to be fully present with others when they need us more than ever? It has the potential to change us deeply and fundamentally while shining a brilliant light on the path of our own lives.
This program utilizes environmentally-focused approaches to education and hands-on learning in order to foster the next generation of leaders through a lens of sustainability and problem-solving.
At Harley, our students learn how to evaluate social systems in order to identify complex problems in society through a lens of social justice. They take a hands-on approach to working for a fair, equitable society by researching, exploring and evaluating different perspectives, and offering solutions—both theoretical and practical.
Students may create independent studies with supervising teachers throughout their Upper School experience or, during Grade 12, they can design Capstone projects—intensive collaborations with Harley faculty and off-campus mentors—involving rigorous academic study and culminating in public presentations. 
Penguins=Math in Action
One of our Primary (combined Kindergarten and Grade 1) classrooms recently started a new unit about penguins that lasts for several weeks. Taking a thematic approach to elementary learning is a vehicle for teaching all subject areas in a hands-on and active way. This also helps our faculty differentiate ways for our students to learn.
Measuring with Unifix cubes
After kicking things off by discussing what makes a penguin a penguin (characteristics such as: dark backs, white bellies, webbed feet/claws, beak, eye, tail, flippers.), what characteristics all penguins have in common, learning about the specific types of penguins and more, the students tackled a big question, “Are you taller than an Emperor Penguin?”
The class started out by looking at the average height of these penguins (48 inches for an adult), then discussed the concept of “average”. (What does the idea of average mean? Will every penguin of a specific type be the exact same size?)
Taller than an Emperor Penguin?
Students used yardsticks to see how tall each penguin would be based on the information they read. Then they cut a ribbon the same length as the penguin’s height. Next, the children measured the ribbon with Unifix cubes to see how tall the penguin would be using a different standard of measurement.
Helping Math Language and Concepts Take Hold
Underlying all of this hands-on work the class talked and learned about math language. The students understood It is not enough to say something is bigger or smaller than something else. After all, it’s possible to be taller but weigh less or be narrower than something else. They discussed how important it is to use the appropriate math language (average, greater than, less than). Then students compared using inches for measurement as well as the smaller Unifix cubes to see how this changes the number when describing the size of something.
As they worked, students tried to predict how tall, in Unifix cubes, each penguin would be based on the information we had gathered about the previous penguins. At these ages number sense varies greatly: some students are working on understanding what numbers like “ten” mean while others are able to go further and start to recognize the kinds of numbers that make sense based on what we know about penguin height.As an example, it take four little blue penguins to equal one Emperor Penguin.
The following day students measured themselves to answer the original question, “Are you taller than an Emperor Penguin?” (Hint, the penguin is pretty much the average size of a student in the class). They are given a ribbon that is as tall as them and then count the number of Unifix cubes it equals. Developmentally, bringing concepts “back to themselves” is a way to make learning more meaningful. To be able to say, “I am 40 inches tall and an Emperor penguin is 48 inches tall.” or “I am as tall as an Adélie penguin.” provide information that is relevant to the children.
Elementary Learning
Introduction to new concepts and challenges, such as how to make predictions well, helps support number sense while providing challenge and refining skills. This project is a fun way to answer a question with a goal of exposure to measurement ideas.