Our advisory system is central to a student’s experience at Washington Latin. This is the home base for each student and, by extension, an important connection for our families.
Every student is assigned a new advisor each year from among the teachers for that grade. The advisor is the student’s “go-to” adult (or at least one of them), serving as a connection to the student, watching their social as well as academic progress. This person sees the student daily, and has special responsibility for getting to know them. Our advisors foster a sense of mutual caring, community, and fun for their advisories. This is where our students begin each morning. Each child’s advisor acts as the “go-to” person for questions that either the parent or child may have.
Here are some fast facts about our advisory system:
- El advisor is a grade-level teacher who meets with a group of students all yearlong and is their “go-to” adult at Latin.
- The advisory is the group of students that forms a yearlong community, meeting daily as a class and having advisory lunch weekly.
- Advisory period is the class that meets each morning to start the day.
- Advisory lunch is a weekly affair, when students and their advisor lunch together in the classroom. Sometimes these are potlucks, with a request for contributions from home or a small monetary donation to cover delivered food (generally this happens in the Upper School grades.) Advisors communicate directly with their students’ families about the advisory lunch date and requests.
- The advisor and advisory change annually. Students are in a newly mixed advisory group each year. We put these advisories together with careful attention to the mix of students, making sure that it is diverse in all ways (personalities, interests, etc.) We also make sure to avoid mixing students who are known to not get along.
- Students do not have all classes with the other students in their advisory. While each student has some overlap with their advisory peers, they will not move through all classes with the entire advisory.
As student move through the Middle School and especially into the Upper School, advisors also provide academic counseling to their students, helping them to map out their coursework in conjunction with other members of the academic team.
Families will hear from their children’s advisors throughout the year. At the start of each school year, both campuses offer advisor-family conferences, a way of kicking off the relationship and give families and students a chance to tell the advisor who they are, what they like, etc. See more about these conferences in our Back to School Events Explainer, and watch for an announcement about how to sign up.
