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The Winchendon School

The best college prep school for students with significant unrealized potential

Community Meeting

Unity Creates Community: A Community Matters Story

Each year, The Winchendon School participates in Unity Day, a day dedicated to showing unity for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.

School photographer Elliot Harvey captured the students at Community Meeting today. In these photos, Mrs. Lambert and the yearbook team make announcements, Shayne introduces her younger sister Iliana who shared an original poem, and students picked up their Unity Day shirts.

If you’re looking for the best social media on social media – we suggest following @winchtagram on Instagram. Mr. Harvey’s daily documentation of life on campus just can’t be beaten!

Community Meeting Because Community Matters

At The Winchendon School, we recognize the efforts of our students and our faculty with both the Character and Kindness award and by recognizing outstanding academic work for the week.

This week, CARE awards recognized the following people:

Bri C.

Rhea B.

Friedrich F.  

#ThisIsSchool #TheWinchWay #GoWapiti

Travis Roy Continues to Inspire

This article was first published in February of 2019. We republish it here today in memory of Travis Roy.

More than 23 years after his accident, Travis Roy continues to inspire young adults. Travis Roy was on campus this week as The Winchendon School Speaker Series continued. Travis began his talk by acknowledging most of his audience hadn’t been born when he had his accident, but he told them, “at the time it was a pretty big news story around here.” A big news story indeed. Roy captured the hearts of Bostonians who have followed his story from that night on October 20th, 1995 until today. To set the scene, Roy played back a clip of the moment that changed his life.

In an absolutely still Faculty Hall, the 260 students, joined by faculty and staff, heard Roy describe how his life unraveled and how he was able to find purpose and meaning within his new reality. That reality came into focus months after the accident when he was in physical therapy. It was then he learned that as a Division One hockey player, he was covered by outstanding insurance, but the other patients at the facility were not. Why he wondered, couldn’t he take some of the thousands of dollars well-wishers sent him in the first weeks after his accident and help others who did not have his financial resources? And at that moment he was able to find a renewed purpose and the Travis Roy Foundation began.

Roy’s story, a remarkable tale of resilience, has less and less to do with that 11-second shift in 1995 and more to do with finding meaning and purpose in all the work we do. His message is finding a new generation who have embraced Roy, much to his surprise, and no one can take that away from him.

“Sometimes, we choose our challenges and dreams, and if we’re really lucky, we can reach them,” Roy said. “But there are other times in life when the challenges simply choose us, and it’s what we do in the face of the challenges that defines who we are. More often than not, the challenges choose you. But from sports and my teachers, I learned to never give up, no matter how bad things went. You always have to have the desire to get back up.” – Travis Roy

Back to School: From ColLAB to Nerf Brand Ambassador

“I probably didn’t speak for the first month of school,” shared Sophie Jameson at Community Meeting the first day back from the Rosh Hashanah break. Now a Nerf brand ambassador, the 2018 graduate explained some of the anxieties she experienced during the early stages of her time at The Winchendon School in Massachusetts. With the help of her teachers, classmates, and love for all things Nerf, Sophie now travels around the country participating in Nerf events and speaking at schools. When she isn’t traveling and speaking publicly, she’s reviewing new Nerf products and posting on social media. 

Sophie joked about how her friends didn’t really like her Nerf-focused posts on Instagram but that her account garnered attention from Nerf enthusiasts around the globe.  It was during her ColLABs where she created a YouTube Channel, learned basic videography and other skills she calls upon in her work with Nerf. ColLABs, a two-week immersive at the end of each semester, are student-designed or faculty-led project-based learning periods that empower students to explore their passions. In addition to worldwide recognition, Sophie caught the attention of the folks over at Nerf. She completed her first year at Babson but has taken a leave of absence to develop her company and work with Nerf.

She was in New York with 15 other Nerfers from around the world competing in the Nerf Ultra Championships with a cash prize of $10,000. The episodes will stream on YouTube. 

Her advice to the students,  “Find something that you love and follow it all the way to the end”. As she wrapped up, she stated her goal is to be the CEO of Hasbro, the parent company of Nerf. 

To keep up with Sophie’s Nerf adventurers, follow her on Instagram @Nerfers101.

To watch Sophie in her 2018 Baccalaureate speech as she describes the anxiety she learned to overcome – go here:

Student Recognition: The Resilience Award

At The Winchendon School, we measure student success beyond the classroom. We choose to celebrate and recognize all the outstanding things students accomplish, including examples of being resilient, our core value of the year.  Congratulations to Luke B.’20 on receiving the first award for resilience this year.

The faculty nomination shows exactly why Luke was honored. In watching a home cross-country meet, a faculty member noticed three distinct groups of runners go by. The first group flew by, the second group came along a few minutes later, sometime after that there was the third group of cross-country runners, who had chosen to walk to the finish line – as they seemed to have given up on the race. And then there was Luke. He came running along… never choosing to walk, and with his schoolmates cheering him on he finished. While the other runners ahead of him had already given up, Luke stood (and ran) as a model of what we should all attempt to be.

Congratulations, Luke!

Community and Traditions

Our students are working hard completing projects, presenting findings, and taking exams before leaving for the winter break. When they return, each student will be immersed in a two-week study during ColLABs, but first, we gathered as a community to rejoice and share our traditions. Thank you to everyone who performed last night and to SAGE Dining Services for the wonderful holiday meal.

We began the festivities with the sounds of the season from our a capella group, listened to “Hey Jude” performed by the rock band, spun a dreidel, and wrote our holiday wishes to be displayed on the School tree. Model UN students distributed their strawberries dipped in chocolate (a fundraiser for their scheduled conferences at Harvard University and Georgetown) and a visit from St. Nick rounded out the festive evening before students headed back to dorms and day students headed home.

By design, a Winchendon School education creates meaningful connections and purpose in all we do. Holding community events such as a holiday dinner provides students with opportunities to make deep connections with the people who surround them.

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