Who you become here matters as much as what you learn
A Clarebourne education is about what you learn in the classroom — and also what happens at rehearsal, at a service project, in student government, and on the stage.
Intellectual development and character formation are part of the same undertaking. Students explore what they enjoy doing and what they care about deeply through a robust variety of extracurricular experiences. They learn to lead, to fail, and how to take risks — building the self-knowledge, the resilience, and the ethical sensibility that will serve them in college and in life.
The arts
Extracurricular opportunities in the arts challenge students to make, to revise, and to share something of themselves with an audience.
Community service
Our structured, cross-division program allows students to develop projects, reflect on the experience, and connect with communities.
Clubs
Choose from more than forty clubs — founded by students and run by students — across academic, cultural, and recreational interests.
Traditions
The signature events that make up our academic year
Clarebourne has a number of closely-held traditions — events that students look forward to years before they happen and carry with them long after they leave. They are the moments that mark time, build community across grade levels and divisions, and give students experiences they could not have in a classroom.
Author’s Chair, October · Lower School
Every Grade 4 student presents an original piece of writing to an audience of classmates, faculty, and families. The pieces are developed over an entire semester. The presentations are rehearsed. The audience includes current parents and siblings and graduates of the Lower School who are invited back to watch students do what they once did. It is one of the most reliably moving evenings on the Clarebourne calendar. English department, Lower School
Community Day, November · all school
One full school day per year in which the academic schedule is suspended and the entire Clarebourne community — all 720 students, all faculty and staff — works together on a single campus-wide project chosen by the Student Government. Past projects have included a complete reorganisation and cataloguing of the school’s community service archive, the construction of raised garden beds on the south campus, and the development of a student-produced oral history of Clarebourne’s first five graduating classes. The project changes every year and is designed to demonstrate that the school community is capable of doing something significant together.
Winter Assembly, December · all school
Clarebourne’s oldest tradition, held in the final week before winter break. The Upper School Chamber Choir performs. Student Government recognises the year’s community service hours. The Head of School speaks — briefly — about the year so far and what the community has been working on. A student from each division shares a piece of writing or a reflection. No awards are given. No rankings are announced. The assembly exists to mark time and to remind students that they are part of something larger than their individual grade.
The One-Act Festival, March · Upper School
Student-directed, student-produced, student-performed. A weekend of one-act plays directed by Upper School students who have applied for the role, cast their own companies, and managed their own production process. Faculty involvement is limited to safety oversight and technical support. The work ranges widely in quality and ambition. All of it is the students’ own.
Senior Thesis Presentations, January · Upper School
Every Grade 12 student presents their Senior Thesis to a faculty panel in January of their final year. The presentations are open to the community — students from all Upper School grades are encouraged to attend at least one. This is deliberate: watching a senior defend fifteen pages of original research before a panel of faculty who will push back on every unsubstantiated claim is an education in itself for a ninth-grader who is three years away from the same experience.
Graduation, June · all school
Clarebourne’s graduation ceremony is held outdoors on the south lawn, weather permitting. It is a full community event — Lower and Middle School students attend along with families. Two seniors speak, chosen by the graduating class. The Head of School speaks. The ceremony ends with the entire school singing a song that has been part of Clarebourne’s graduation since 1974, the words of which every student learns in their first year here and the melody of which, graduates report, returns to them unexpectedly for years afterward.
Prospective families are welcome at most Clarebourne events. Contact admissions to learn more about upcoming school events.