Nurturing Spirituality

“The Trinity Episcopal School student is trained in the example of Christ and toward a stewardship of healthy body, lively soul and discerning mind.”

In the Episcopal tradition of education, this means that spiritual formation of our students is as important as their intellectual development. Their values, the faith that they embrace, the relationships they form in the community of seekers gathered in the various school chapels and faith studies classes will last far longer than the years they spend at Trinity.

We bind our community together with rituals.

From our Monday morning ‘Greet the Week’ celebration to our Friday morning Community Chapel, we gather as a school community to participate in worship and celebrate all that connects us. Individual classes hold regular morning meetings to share news, resolve problems and discuss issues.

All Trinity students in every grade receive instruction in Faith Studies in the classroom each week. Faith Studies include knowing factual information about biblical literature, church history, theology and related matters. But at Trinity, Faith Studies is not just academic; it also includes providing children with practices, experiences and relationships that develop and strengthen their faith in God.

We bind our community together with shared traditions.

Middle Schoolers start the school year off with our annual retreat where they can shore up a sense of community amidst the frenetic changes of young adolescents. Overnight class trips in fourth- through eighth-grades take us into outdoor classrooms. Fifth-graders participate in the RISE program which prepares them for life in middle school and the eighth-graders take on the faculty in the annual basketball game which launches them into a series of events that helps the transition to high school. Programs that reflect the school’s commitment to our promise that students will embrace diversity (e.g. Mix it Up Day, All Trinity Reads, Freedom Fete) are anticipated with the certainty of a favorite family tradition.

We bind our community together with small groups.

Relationships are key to student learning as we take time to make sure each individual student is known and knows others. As peer relationships become more significant and complicated in third through fifth-grade, students participate weekly in the Tribes of Trinity to get to know a small group of their peers. Similarly, our middle schoolers are grouped, not in homerooms, but in Koinonias so they will have a small community of peers to learn and grow with through eighth-grade.

Trinity faculty and families have a high expectation that time, energy and resources will be devoted to community building because the payoff is worth the investment.