Student Life
Arts
The arts at BSS are integral to how our students learn about themselves and the world around them.
Students cultivate creativity, critical thinking, resilience and well-being through our curricular and co-curricular arts programs. They find their confidence and learn to express themselves. At every age, they have opportunities to use a variety of media to create personal, meaningful pieces of art. They can learn a musical instrument, join a dance class, sing in a choir or take a role in a stage production.
At BSS, the arts flow through and enrich other areas of the curriculum. We offer arts programming from JK to Grade 12 in a wide range of disciplines, and integrate cutting-edge technology and explicit connections to STEM. This interdisciplinary approach encourages students to innovate and think creatively. And it helps foundational concepts stick. It’s easier to understand how a cell works after drawing a playing card depicting its “super powers.” Design and engineering concepts come alive when students create fantastical props for a theatre production.
Junior School
Our Reggio-inspired approach sets the stage for creative inquiry throughout students’ entire academic journey. With their teachers, Junior School students engage in investigations and collaborative problem-solving, and express their learning through drawing, painting, sculpting, performance, movement, creative writing and more. The Atelier (inspired by the ateliers in Reggio Emilia, Italy) is a special place in the Junior School where students research, question, wonder, discover and invent using a variety of materials and tools. The hallways of the Junior School are filled with provocative and moving documentation of students’ voices and perspectives.
JK to Grade 5 students learn vocal and percussion skills with a focus on rhythmic movement and songs. Grade 6 introduces instrumental music with ukulele, band, and strings. The Junior Choir and optional Fun Plus program offer opportunities for vocal, musical theatre and dance performances that foster an understanding of musical concepts, technique, composition and performance.
Middle and Senior School
In Grade 7 and 8, instrumental music and visual arts classes continue to be part of the curriculum. The Options program offers various arts, crafts and design activities, such as dance, jewelry making, sewing and game design. In Grades 9 to 12, students can take visual art, dance, drama, guitar, band, strings and vocal classes up to Grade 11, and expand their learning in Grade 12 with music composition, choreography, drama production, and non-traditional and digital arts classes. Our interdisciplinary Innovation and Design course offers a unique fusion of technology, art and design.
Co-curricular opportunities include musical and drama productions, participation in the Conference of Independent Schools Dance, Drama, Music and Art Festivals, student-led clubs about topics ranging from poetry to video production to photography, and Global Learning experiences that expose students to art and performance in a variety of cultures.
What the arts look like at BSS
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Atelier Explorations
In the Junior School Atelier, Grade 3 students worked in research groups to explore different facets of water.Read More -
Embodying the Absurd
Grade 12 French students learned about biomechanics as part of their study of The Class by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco.Read More -
Representing Big Ideas
In Senior Visual Arts, students undertake ambitious summative projects as the culmination of their creative process and learning.Read More -
Taking the Stage
Stage productions offer students in the Middle and Senior School a multifaceted opportunity to learn and refine skills in performance, design and production.Read More
