Day & Boarding Middle School for Boys in Massachusetts

Hillside School, Marlborough:
Located in Marlborough, Middlesex County, MA, 30 miles west of Boston, 70 miles from Hartford, and 3½ hours from New York City, Hillside School is an independent boarding and day school for boys grades 5-9. For over 100 years Hillside has provided educational and residential services to boys who need to develop their academic and social skills. Hillside accommodates both traditional learners and boys with learning differences and/or attention problems. Offering a structured, supportive, and challenging curriculum, Hillside allows students to develop academically, physically, spiritually, morally and socially while building their confidence and maturity.

Boarding and Day Programs for Boys (Grades 5-9)
Academics:
Hillside School's academic program aims to prepare students for a challenging and successful future. Through a carefully balanced exposure to arts and sciences, inquiry, activity, and experimental learning characterize the rhythm of the classroom.

Key subjetcs include math, science, English, social studies, arts, music, physical education.

Systems of structure and flexibility are key in promoting success at Hillside. Students are supplied with organizational systems for note taking and archiving, teachers subscribe to a universal method of presenting notes, and all students are supplied with a Hillside homework agenda book.

Teachers treat students individually and are flexible in using different strategies and assessments. At Hillside, we believe all students can learn at a high level and we recognize that each boy measures success in his own unique way.

Farm Immersion Program:
The farm and farm program have always been an important part of a boy's experience at Hillside School. We are blessed to have a wonderful farm facility (20 acres of fields, pens and barns) as part of our campus (200 acres).

Each Hillside student participates in the farm through our farm immersion program. Additionally, each student may choose to join the fall or spring Eco team as their afternoon sports program. Boarders who live in the Alumni Farm House participate in the regular care and feeding of the animals as part of their house responsibilities.

The Hillside School Farm serves as a "classroom" for the farm immersion program. Each student spends at least one week during the year with his teachers and classmates learning lessons in the context of the farm environment.

Faculty create active learning projects, which enhance farm resources, develop cross-disciplinary perspective, and allow boys to learn multi-dimensionally. Whether in the garden, in the barn coops and pens, or in the field, the interaction of boys with our live-stock produces an increasingly mature perspective about human and environmental ecology.

Athletics:
Athletics plays an integral role in the lives of Hillside students and is an important part of the educational program of the school. Athletics promotes social skills that are essential to children's development.

Cooperation with others, perseverance, school spirit, acceptance of failure and working toward success, building self-confidence, improving skills, physical activity and play are but a few of the components the program promotes.

Children with different skills and skill levels benefit from a wide array of choices in each season that offers something for a variety of interests. Finding an activity or sport in which a child can find interest, success or even passion is the hope of our program and is a building block of healthy child development.

Health and Wellness Curriculum:
This curriculum promotes healthier eating, nutrition and food choices among our students. At the same time, other health issues being addressed include self-image, plus physical and intellectual well-being among students through the 'five circles of health': physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social development.

Summer Program:
The summer term includes academic enrichment in math, English and English as a Second Language. The summer term also embraces leadership training, outdoor-adventures as well as athletics.