Health & Wellness

Through participation in a variety of activities, students develop an appreciation for the importance of regular exercise, first aid, and behavior patterns that will lead to a healthy lifestyle, reduced stress, illness prevention, and overall fitness.

Our spiral Health and Wellness curriculum sets the foundation in 7th grade where students are introduced to the importance of self-care, identity, injury and illness prevention, and sexual wellness. During 9th grade, the curriculum expands with a focus on mental and emotional health, substance use and abuse, sexuality and reproductive health, as well as nutrition. Additionally, a movement component is woven into the class, co-taught with physical education instructors, giving students the opportunity to set exercise goals and practice healthy habits. The curriculum culminates in the 11th grade year, when students work toward an independent project in a self-paced blended learning model. The semester-long class is shared with self-defense classes, which teaches students integral skills of prevention and protection. 

In addition to the health curriculum, students also have access to Olivia Ceja, School Nurse and Campus Healthcare Provider. Ms. Ceja serves as a primary resource regarding contagious and infectious diseases, provides first aid, and is available to consult with students regarding specific health issues that may impact their learning experience.

For information about our COVID-19 protocol, please visit our COVID-19 Planning page.

We work with students and their parents as a team to nurture the student’s health, well-being and academic goals. Beyond that network of trusted adults, Marlborough also provides student-to-student resources for support when students have questions or challenges.

At Marlborough, students are encouraged to build meaningful relationships with each other and with the adults in their lives. 

To this end, students are placed into advising groups and with advisors for the entirety of their time in the Middle School division, then rotated to a new group for the entirety of their time in Upper School.

In addition to relationship building, the Advisory curriculum strives to foster the student’s awareness of her own social, emotional, and cognitive development through the development of healthy and effective life skills such as anti-harassment skills, self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, healthy relationship skills, and overall thoughtful decision-making in the real and virtual worlds.

As part of the school’s value statement of “Equity Leads Education”, over the past five years, teams of teachers have been exploring, researching and implementing methods to ground instructional and grading practices in equity. Rooted in educational research, these practices strive to provide assessment and feedback that is both accurate and bias-resistant.

To this end, the school has adopted a more mathematically accurate grading scale and has a team of early-adopter teachers implementing mastery-based educational practices. These practices include the use of clearly articulated learning targets and success criteria, grading practices that focus on the level of student understanding, rather than behavior, and encouraging students to take part in a relearning-reassessment cycle to optimize their mastery of course material.

As a school committed to providing a safe and supportive environment for students to learn and lead, we must acknowledge the experience of our students in marginalized groups, including BIPOC, gender non-conforming, and those from low socio-economic families.

We support all students by providing the tools to address those events, effective and safe avenues for sharing their experiences, and a clear and fair process for deciding, implementing, and communicating the consequences of interpersonal racism in our community.