Advisories
What makes a student thrive? A sense of belonging. Trusted mentors. A community that sees and supports them. At SSSAS, our advisory programs provide all of that and more. From Middle to Upper School, advisory is a foundation for connection, confidence, and character—helping students build meaningful relationships, develop life skills, and navigate school with purpose and support.
Middle School Advisory
A combination of people, place, and program, Middle School Advisory is much more than a homeroom.While it serves as a home base, a space and a group of people to start and end your day with, Advisory also provides support, skill development, mentoring, camaraderie, and laughs. For many middle schoolers, it becomes a second home. Just as important, our students form strong bonds with their teachers, who are experts on the transition from tween to teen and who find mentoring middle schoolers an absolute joy.
The Middle School Saints Advisory Program
Recognizing that creating connections and building relationships are fundamental to positive learning environments, the Saints Advisory Program (SAP)’s mission focuses on the development of social-emotional skills and aims to benefit all community members. Advisories participate in SAP following chapel each week. This time is organized into three purposefully designed parts, including social-emotional learning activities, inclusive and intentional downtime, as well as school-specific logistical tasks. By focusing on these three areas, SAP aims to provide students with both the academic support and the social-emotional guidance they need to thrive. The program seeks to create meaningful bonds between students and faculty, contributing to a supportive and cohesive school community.
Upper School Advisory
Advisory is fundamental to SSSAS school culture. It's how we make sure every student has an adult who truly has their back.
Each student in the Upper School is assigned to an advisory group, which is led by an Upper School faculty member who serves as the advisor. The advisor helps students navigate academic and social dynamics at school and serves as a liaison between the family and the school. The advisor takes a special interest in the lives of their advisees and helps to develop a warm, supportive, and caring advisory group dynamic. The advisor is the contact person for parents who are concerned about their child's academic standing. The advisor is also a contact and advocate for students. If parents have academic concerns, the classroom teacher is the parent's first point of contact; the advisor is second. Parents/guardians are encouraged to call the advisor for general questions and concerns.
The advisory group meets weekly at the Upper School. Advisory sessions may involve unstructured conversations and relationship-building time or can be dedicated toward more focused conversations related to school initiatives (e.g., Digital Citizenship, Study Strategies, etc.). Several times each semester, the advisory group will engage with our dialogue advisory program in partnership with another advisory group. During the dialogue advisory session, students learn the important dialogue skills of listening, speaking, responding, and reflecting, which are essential transferable skills that will help students navigate a complex and changing world.
Upper School Faculty Advisor
Each student in the Upper School has a faculty advisor who acts as a contact and advocate for the student. He or she meets regularly with the student and is available to discuss courses, study skills, honor, goals, activities, pressures or whatever the student wishes to discuss. Additionally, the advisor reviews the report cards with the student each of the first three quarters in order to help facilitate understanding and map the future. In the spring the advisor reviews the process for course selection and each advisee's course selection sheet for the next school year.