Valwood challenges each student to strive for academic excellence through a program founded on a rigorous, traditional college-preparatory curriculum. The curriculum is designed to foster intellectual curiosity and to enable each student to read with understanding, think critically and creatively, and write effectively. In an effort to educate the whole student, Valwood supports and encourages participation in the arts, athletics, and experiences in the natural world. In choosing Valwood, parents can be confident that their child will receive an exceptional college-preparatory education grounded in tenants that will carry them successfully through graduation and beyond.
Development of strong character, the values of integrity, honesty, and fair play and a desire to serve others are important attributes stressed daily at Valwood. The Valwood experience prepares its students to face the challenges of college, career, and life with maturity, intelligence, skill, courage, grace, humor, and dignity. Valwood teachers encourage each student to strive for his or her own personal best. Small classes at every level facilitate one-on-one instruction that ensures the teacher’s unencumbered interest in each student’s success.
Valwood’s Lower School is where a love of learning begins. It is a community where children develop a life-long love of learning as they build their self-esteem and cultivate their talents; a place where students are provided an atmosphere conducive to learning in a stimulating and nurturing environment. The lower school includes Pre-K through fifth grades.
Valwood’s Middle School offers a three-year program, including grades six, seven, and eight, dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, as well as the intellectual and moral development of students. The middle school years represent a bridge between the security of a teacher-centered Lower School and the rigors of a subject-centered Upper School. Teachers work together to address social, emotional, and academic challenges faced by students during early adolescence.
Upper School begins an exciting period in a student’s life. To be sure, grades begin to count for college admission, but perhaps more importantly, students are being prepared to succeed in college. In addition, the Upper School offers many opportunities for challenge, service, and competition in which students discover who they are, and who they want to be. We are proud to offer 15 AP courses, 7 college classes taught on Valwood’s campus and 16 varsity, no-cut athletic teams.
The students and faculty at Valwood are served by two libraries. The Corker Giles Library is located in Crane Hall and the Lower School library, Turner Library, is located in Foy Anderson Hall. Corker Giles Library houses thousands of books available to pre-K through 12th grades. The Turner Library houses a computer and innovations lab.
Each library provides additional resources for learning and a quiet environment for study and reading. Computers are available to students and faculty and are networked to all other computers on campus.