Students from 12 states, 22 countries and five continents were welcomed as The Webb School continued to prepare for the 2022-2023 school year with Welcome Weekend and Orientation on Aug. 13-14. The school will begin its 153rd school year Aug. 15 with a total of 425 students, 20 more than last year. The enrollment includes 291 day students and 134 boarding students.
“It is indeed our honor, privilege and blessing to have each one of you join our Webb family,” Head of School Ken Cheeseman told the new families at an orientation meeting Aug. 13. To parents, he added, “I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to invest in your child, and I want you to know you have extraordinary partners in our faculty. They are willing, ready and able to pour themselves into your children and your family to achieve our vision of developing future global leaders who pursue excellence in academics, arts and athletics, with character above all else.”
Cheeseman, in his third year as Webb’s head of school, added, “We know you have many choices, and we are grateful that you saw in our unique mission, enduring understandings, and people, a partnership you could trust to help your son or your daughter be his or her very best. Our aim is for our teachers, coaches and advisors to know your child, to love and appreciate your child, and to inculcate the values that have been hallmarks of Webb for 152 years. Those values will be forged through fun and celebratory times, through stress and strain, through rough patches of doubt, and through seasons of growing confidence.”
He explained, “As I shared at this gathering last year, research is clear that for any one of us to be our best, we must spend most of our time in our zone of proximal development, wherein we are being stretched to new heights of understanding and performance, but not stretched so far that we cannot reach those heights. This process is both art and science, thriving best in small environments, like Webb, where your students are known.”
Webb’s head also cited the tenets of the school’s mission in explaining what values Webb will commit to continually work to instill in all students.
Welcoming students, Cheeseman told them that Webb has very high expectations of each student and is confident that the students can meet them. Using Webb’s Enduring Understandings in tandem with the mission, he added, “I expect you to be young men and young women of integrity and honor; to constantly develop self-discipline and autonomy to be your best and to do your part in the collaborations of the community; to understand that each and every one of you has unique gifts and a responsibility to develop those to make our Webb family and the world a better place; to respect yourself and others; and to take on the responsibility and honor of serving others to help them to be their best.
“It is our hope, our prayer, our intent that you strive for and accomplish these behavior and heart patterns while developing a love and enjoyment of learning, in academics, arts and athletics.”
