Presently The Lower School tenets can be found in their GATORS Anagram of the school’s mascot.

Giving of ourselves
Accepting of others
Truthful in everything
Open to new ideas
Respectful of others, self, and the environment
Supportive of the community

The goal of the anagram is to express Shipley’s mission in language readily understood by Lower School students. It is in this context that children learn the essential skills of living and working with others and are motivated to uphold the Schools motto: Courage for the Deed, Grace for the Doing.

In Middle School, students are governed by three important Principles of Community Life: Respect yourself, respect others, and respect your environment. All members of the community, including students, teachers, and parents, are asked to use these principles as a guide to ensure a healthy environment in which all can learn and grow. The Upper School expects students to adopt the following guidelines in their daily lives at Shipley: common sense, truthfulness, and respect for oneself, others, the environment, and the school and its place in the community.

With all current guidelines clearly defined, the gathering was able to begin work on a student generated mission. They realized that there were many challenges, including that the language used couldn’t be too juvenile or too sophisticated, and determined that it was essential that the language used in the final statement be understood by all students. Lauren Goldstein, a 4th grader and student council member, was an active participant in the congress. “It was a fun experience because we got a chance to see what the rest of the school’s representatives thought. People all joined in and had great ideas as we tried to think of a way to make a statement Kindergarteners and 12th graders would understand.”

Those in attendance touched on integrity, loyalty, honesty, courage, trust, and grace as key qualities to emphasize while ensuring that the statement of Shipley life be geared not only for those within the community, but would be clearly understood by anyone outside of the Shipley community. Maggie Granados, Head of Lower School, anticipates that the students will continue to work hard at creating a thoughtful and sensitive statement. She says, “It was impressive to see how well each student representing their particular division understood and articulated the commonalities among the Lower, Middle and Upper Schools.  With very little adult guidance the students crafted a document that gets to the heart of Shipley life.  Our Congress was a wonderful experience and we will look to get students from all three divisions together in a meaningful way again soon.”

Posted December 8, 2004