April 19-25, 2025

We packed so much into this four-day school week! Our sophomores put the final touch on the Sophomore Seminar projects on Wednesday evening with Capstone night (story and photos below). Our delightful 6th grade put the final touches on their Shrek the Musical, Jr, and presented it to the Middle School and 1st through 5th grade students from Free Union School - you have two chances to catch it this weekend (details below). We honored Earth Day. Class of 1975 alums met on campus today to begin to celebrating their 50th reunion, and also invited the classes of 1973, 1974 and 1976 to join them tonight for a reception. As always, there were plenty of games, practices, rehearsals and club meetings.

In the Middle School, 5th graders are embarking on an indigenous farming project. 6th graders shared their Shrek the Musical, Jr to happy audiences (two weekend shows if you can make it - details below). In science class, they took on owl pellets. Middle School clubs met during Community Time - one group created floral mandalas around campus. 7th graders are reading Of Mice and Men and learning about genetics. 8th graders are designing board games in science class.

In the Upper School, 9th graders continue on their TED Talks and are reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Sophomores breathed their sigh of relief after their informative Sophomore Seminar Capstone night and are reading All Quiet on the Western Front. The Quiz Bowl team competed in Roanoke, holding their own against much older teams. Engineering students are hard at work building their trebuchets and putting final touches on their boat designs. Tandem Earth members hosted some very informative Earth Day workshops (see details and photos below). 

This week’s Upper School Speaker Series guests were two members of the Class of 1975 - here for their 50th reunion - Milo Velimirovic and Peter Haviland. They spoke about things like: early electronics classes that led to careers in programming; repelling down the main building; shooting across the lawn with a teacher (yikes); the "virtue of laziness;" having free periods and learning to manage your time; a newspaper class with Duncan Alling. They reminisced about the early days of Tandem, when clubs and things weren't formalized, but things would just spring up when there was interest. Current students asked questions about work crew, student leadership, wildest stories, student/teacher relationships, etc. It was a nice give and take between students and alums.