About Our Students
Meet the St. Paul's students. They come in every shape and size. Our lower school is co-ed. Our middle and upper schools are all-boys. Together we form a community that nurtures individuality and encourages each child to realize his full talents and capacities.
St. Paul's is about opportunity. Our students have the opportunity...
...to grow academically
St. Paul's offers challenges of the highest academic order. We begin in the Lower School, where children acquire an appetite for learning, a curiosity about the world, a heartfelt concern for others, and a confidence in their own abilities and accomplishments.
-
At St. Paul's, the goal of social maturity - development of integrity, confidence, and generosity of spirit - carries equal weight with academic accomplishment.
In the Middle School, we encourage our students to become more independent, in thought as well as action, and to begin to take charge of their own work and conduct. We guide them as they become more sophisticated problem-solvers, interpretive readers, creative and expository writers, and scientific investigators.
By Upper School, boys have come to fully appreciate their individual powers and talents as they prepare for the demands of college. Rigorous in ways that challenge each student to strive for his personal best, the curriculum encourages exploration and self-expression. Independent study projects; advance placement, International Baccalaureate, and honors courses; elective course work and study abroad; community service and experiential internships: all are part of a St. Paul's education.
...to grow socially
At St. Paul's, the goal of social maturity - development of integrity, confidence, and generosity of spirit - carries equal weight with academic accomplishment. Our Episcopalian roots, provide the broad themes of our institutional and educational practices. In our classrooms, on our playgrounds and playing fields, and out in the wider community, students learn to develop the habits of mind and heart that will serve them in any situation.
At the core of the social experience for St. Paul's students is its unique relationship with St. Paul's School for girls, offering a variety of academic, extracurricular, and purely social options. From the coeducational Lower School, boys continue on to the Middle School (and girls to St. Paul's School for Girls [add live link]). Throughout the Middle and Upper School years, boys and girls of the two Schools share many activities, projects, and classes. The benefits of the coordinate system are obvious: St. Paul's students derive the best of a single-sex - and coeducational - experience.
...to grow spiritually
We begin with the belief that everyone has an inestimable worth and dignity because each individual is made in the image of God. We welcome students and families from a wide variety of religious backgrounds and practices. We are not a parochial school, in that we are not the province of a parish. Nor are we a sectarian school, in that we embrace anyone and her or his beliefs. We thrive on diversity, but we are an Episcopal school, and as such, we seek to expose students to the Anglican tradition, while emphasizing the value and dignity of diverse individual religious practices and spiritual needs.
We share the love of God as we know it through Jesus Christ. We believe it is to be done through a ministry of presence, acceptance and nurture rather than one of conversion. We strive to provide a moral and spiritual culture in such a way that there is an appreciation for the diversity and values of all religious traditions. We hope that each person’s own religious beliefs and traditions will become stronger as they progress through the School to graduation.
Growing spiritually at St. Paul’s School involves teaching, encouraging, and nurturing young people in order that they might love, God, neighbor, and self. The most fundamental lessons in faith, hope and love regularly occur in classrooms, in worship, through pastoral relationships, and in outreach to others. Episcopal schools face the challenge to integrate the physical, social, academic, and spiritual development of the whole child through the ways in which we live as a community.
...to play sports
"Fight the good fight" - as the St. Paul's motto says - sums up our style of athletics. Winning is wonderful, but the adventure, discipline, and joy of competition count more. That lesson begins in the Lower School physical education program, where students learn the value of team play and build skills in areas such as running, catching, and balancing. As our students progress through St. Paul's, this approach builds character and confidence: students who wouldn't dream of trying out for football or lacrosse at other schools get a chance to play here while those who would concentrate on only one sport elsewhere often play two or three at St. Paul's. The pleasant result is that St. Paul's teams win against larger schools with more specialized players. One of the smallest schools among the 21-member Maryland interscholastic Athletic Association, St. Paul's is traditionally a big-time victor. We've won 75 championships in over 60 years of athletic competition.
...to create art
At St. Paul's, all the arts - drama, dance, music, and visual arts - have pride of place, as evidenced by the prominence of The Ward Center for the Arts that is shared with St. Paul's School for Girls. It enhances a part of St. Paul's education that has been vital from the beginning: an emphasis on creativity. An enduring example is the Old St. Paul's Parish Choir of Men and Boys: populated by students since 1873, it is the second-oldest such choir in the nation. St. Paul's arts faculty comes from a variety of professional and educational backgrounds; all share their passion and expertise with their students. "As a teacher, you have to utilize your students' energy," says one. "They can't give you what's inside them unless you bring it out."
...to make a difference
-
Students at St. Paul's, blessed with extraordinary resources, come to appreciate the day when they will step out onto the broader social stage and use their gifts with purpose.
Those of us who teach and learn here know St. Paul's as a school where imagination and intellect take flight, where spirituality takes many forms, and where students discover the timbre of their voices and the center of their talent. Students at St. Paul's, blessed with extraordinary resources, come to appreciate the day when they will step out onto the broader social stage and use their gifts with purpose. Community service, whether through organized school programs or an individual's initiative, has a long tradition at St. Paul's - "to labor and not to ask for any reward" is the penultimate line of the St. Paul's School prayer.
At St. Paul's there's a web page just for our current students. You can find it here to learn more about the lives that our students lead.
410.825.4400
410.427.0390