The key to a successful Upper School experience is striking a balance between academic and extracurricular commitments.
In the Upper School, we expect students to be multi-faceted members of the community. Extracurricular activities abound. Our boys are required to become involved in school life and to pursue opportunities beyond the classroom — whether on the athletic fields, on the stage, or in the surrounding community.
Often, it is in extracurricular arenas that Brunswick boys learn their greatest lessons — those of sportsmanship, hard work, and self-expression. They also form lasting bonds with teammates, coaches, and faculty members.
Above all else, Brunswick boys are more than just students. They seek enriching experiences and in doing so, they enhance the entire school community.
The Brunswick Student Government advances the concerns, ideas, and suggestions of Upper School students to further the interests of student life, to promote school spirit, and to interact positively with the administration and faculty. Ultimately, the BSG is meant to serve the interests of the student body, which it represents and leads.
Throughout the year, the BSG sponsors events to bring students and faculty together. The BSG puts together the student facebook, designs the Homecoming t-shirts, and runs the Homecoming bonfire. In addition, the BSG organizes the Brown and White dance for all Brunswick and Greenwich Academy students, and runs The Brunswick Upper School Tournament (B.U.S.T.) every March, a single-elimination basketball tournament.
The BSG also presents student opinion to the administration on such issues as course evaluation, parking, and faculty-student relations. Students interested in serving as BSG representatives are invited to run for office in the spring of each academic year.
The faculty advisor system is a major factor in the school life of every Upper School boy.
All students are carefully matched with an experienced faculty advisor for the academic year, and, as critical as is the advisor’s responsibility to chronicle academic progress and to serve as liaison between school and parent, it is the advisor’s role as friend and advocate that is most important.
Through mutual respect and personal regard for the advisor/student relationship, Brunswick teachers model the school’s core values and help develop each boy’s confidence in ways that will serve him throughout his life.
Brunswick’s student newspaper, The Chronicle, is published multiple times throughout the school year — striving to keep Upper School students informed of all school-related news, events, and issues. The Chronicle is led by an Editor(s)-in-Chief and a Faculty Advisor. Staff writing opportunities are accessible to all Upper School students.
Published each spring and dating back to the 1920s, The Oracle is the school’s literary magazine. The Oracle publishes creative writing of all forms (including but not limited to poetry, fiction, literary non-fiction, memoir, and drama), and accepts submissions of the independent work of Brunswick School and Greenwich Academy students and work generated from Brunswick School and Greenwich Academy English classes. The Oracle staff includes an Editor(s)-in-Chief and an Editorial Board, as well as other various staff members responsible for layout, distribution, web development, etc.
Brunswick’s long-standing commitment to diversity and innovation is now reflected in a new collaborative magazine — Babel — that made its debut in May 2014. In a truly unified effort, students from Brunswick and GA have come together to create a multi-lingual e-magazine featuring art, music, poetry, and prose in as many as 13 different languages. The colorful, eye-opening 124-page e-magazine is comprised of work from dozens of students in all of the modern and classical languages taught at Brunswick — including Arabic, Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish. Read the latest issue on the Babel website.
The Brunswick debate team — comprised of students of all Upper School grade levels — competes in a number of in-house and interscholastic events throughout the school year.
Under the leadership of a faculty advisor, team members learn valuable lessons about logic, argumentation, and extemporaneous thinking — all of which serve them well in the classroom and in their futures.
Brunswick’s Big Brother Program gives Upper School students the opportunity to work hand in hand with younger members of our community.
The program brings a select group of Upper School boys to our Lower School and Pre School campuses weekly, where they engage in a variety of activities with younger students.
Upper School boys can often be found playing football, wall ball, and basketball on the playground alongside 1st-4th graders. They also regularly visit classrooms to enhance the learning process.
Connections is a cross-divisional initiative that aims to build the bonds of camaraderie among students of all ages.
Upper School boys are chosen to lead advisory activities and run Middle and Lower School assemblies throughout the year. These students are trained to teach younger boys important lessons of cooperation, teamwork, and role modeling.
The program builds a deeper sense of community and reinforces the concept that students are responsible for each other and should look out for one another.
The Peer Leadership Program is designed to assist freshman boys and girls in their transition to the Upper School.
By facilitating a weekly discussion and activity group with freshmen in the fall, Peer Leaders help make the students feel welcome, and offer each of them a trustworthy friend in the senior class.
All rising seniors are invited to apply to become a Peer Leader, and after a lengthy and thorough selection process, a group of 42 seniors — 21 from Brunswick and 21 from Greenwich Academy — is ultimately chosen.
Peer Leaders start their school year with a weekend retreat in late August, when they are introduced to each other and begin their training as facilitators.
Freshmen meet their Peer Leaders on Orientation Day.
Model United Nations — an educational simulation and academic competition in which students learn about diplomacy, international relations, and the United Nations — promotes healthy and creative debate among all participants, and teaches students the importance of preparation.
BruMUNC (Brunswick Model United Nations Club), open to all interested Upper School students, attends four conferences each year — at Horace Mann, Princeton, Cornell, and Georgetown.
Brunswick’s Upper School offers students the opportunity to pursue extra-curricular interests through a spectrum of clubs and organizations. Additional opportunities are also available in conjunction with Greenwich Academy, through the schools’ coordinate program.