At Belmont Day School we believe that teaching and learning are vital activities for all members of the community, children and adults alike. Faculty and staff are encouraged to take on leadership roles and expected to engage in their own learning. Professional development funds are available to faculty for workshops, conferences, and curriculum development. Faculty and staff are also encouraged to visit other schools and share these experiences with their colleagues. Each year Belmont Day School hosts visiting educational professionals in the classroom and in faculty-run workshops.

Many faculty members have taken part in the school's Pioneer Program, which provides funding and professional development for individual classroom technology initiatives. In recent years, faculty members have received equipment and training for a wide range of projects, including an interactive vocabulary program, the use of digital audio recording to chart the reading progress of primary and lower school students, a musical notation program, and a sixth grade web design project that documented the construction of our middle school wing.

Summer Adventures

This summer our faculty enjoyed rich and exciting summer adventures. Three teachers attended a workshop sponsored by the Northeast Foundation for Children on the characteristics of the Responsive Classroom. The teachers brought back many ideas for building and sustaining classroom communities.

A kindergarten and first grade teacher attended the Dana Hall Mathematics Workshop learning about the latest theories and techniques for teaching mathematics while one of our third grade teachers explored best practices in science education at the Science Workshop.

Our middle school coordinator participated in the National Association of Independent Schools Leadership Conference. A kindergarten teacher and an eighth grade teacher attended the National Association of Independent Schools Diversity Conference.

Our eighth grade humanities and language arts teacher was selected by Facing History and Ourselves to serve on their National Teacher Leadership Team as a consultant and participated in a symposium sponsored exploring the issue of religious illiteracy in the United States.

Our next schools coordinator participated in a course on the Orton Gillingham Program in reading acquisition at Massachusetts General Hospital. One of our second Grade teachers attended the week-long Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop at Columbia University Teachers College.

The middle school drama teacher participated in dance classes this summer in order to help students explore the importance of movement in expressing character. Dance and literature were the themes for our two seventh grade teachers at Northeastern University’s course “Dancing the Text.”

A fourth grade teacher and a visual art teacher participated in the Greek Studies Program sponsored by the Newton Public Schools and Brandeis University. After completing a graduate level Classics course at Brandeis they traveled to Greece for further study.