In every classroom at Archway Arete, you will find, prominently displayed, our nine core virtues: responsibility, perseverance, integrity, honesty, courage, citizenship, humility, friendship, and wisdom. By exhibiting these virtues in our classrooms, we hope to remind ourselves of our proper aim towards what is good and noble. The teachers and staff at Archway Arete aim to model these virtues, and share with our students examples of great men and women who exemplify these core principles in our curriculum. We, in turn, will help coach our students to reach for virtue in their own daily living. In order to aid our teachers in this important work we, as a school, will highlight one particular virtue each month in order to understand each one further. The virtue for the month of October is perseverance.  We invite our parents to help reinforce with your children the importance of perseverance both in school and out.

Neil Gillingham, Headmaster

Our lessons this month have a very important theme. We have taken our inspiration from a favorite book here at Great Hearts - indeed, a favorite for centuries: Plato's Apology. Not only do his thoughts and ideas pertain to society, philosophy, and many more aspects of life, but also to the importance of living a virtuous life. Plato's Apology recounts the last words of Socrates, when he says some of his most famous and enduring quotes. He says that to talk every day about virtue and to live a virtuous and contemplative life is the greatest good to man. To that end, we have structured our lessons around the idea that living a purposeful life of virtue and knowledge may be practiced in the small actions every day.

While there are hundreds of pages written on this topic, Athenaeum will focus on the proactive methods that each student may implement in their daily lives. Some of our lessons will focus on different literary characters who exemplify certain virtues, through which our students may learn how to practice character-building traits. Other lessons will focus on the importance of things such as mental and physical exercise which lead to the growth of thoughtful, courteous, and contributing citizens.

Best wishes,

The Barnes and Noble Book Fair, benefitting Archway Arete, will take place October 29th and 30th, from 4-8 p.m., at the Dana Park location. Come visit your teacher during story time; their time slots will be revealed October 24th. Purchase a preselected book at the store to donate to a classroom or the library; the grade with the most books donated will receive a pizza party! Look for a flyer in your child's backpack that will need to be presented at Barnes and Noble.

The day after the Book Fair, October 31st, Archway Arete will be having a Literature Day Read-a-Thon! Students and teachers will dress up as their favorite literary characters, and spend an afternoon reading, and being read to, by parents, Arete Prep Seniors, and Mr. Gillingham! More information (including character ideas) will be coming home with your student on Friday, October 17th. While this day purposefully coincides with Halloween to allow our students to dress up, please keep in mind there will not be any Halloween-themed activates or décor. This is a day for celebrating books and our culture of reading. We look  forward to sharing this fun event with our students! 

Mark your calendars! School picture retakes are scheduled for the morning of Wednesday, November 5th. Retake forms can be picked up at the front office, or you can use the one that came home with the original photographs. Students who have not yet had their pictures taken may do so on this day.

Soccer for K-5 will start Thursday, October 23rd at 3:00 p.m. Click here for more information and to fill out the registration form; contact Coach Rubino (mrubino@ArchwayArete.org) with any questions. We'll see you on the field!

Next week, clubs will resume as previously scheduled. Tuesday, October 21st will be the last LEGO Club meeting for K-2. Tuesday, October 28th will be the first meeting for LEGO Club 3-5 in the Music room, 2:50-4:20 p.m. If you have any questions, please contact your club leader or Mrs. Keffer (tkeffer@archwayarete.org).

Do you know a family that is interested in sending their children to Archway Arete? Tours are now available! Each hour-long session, led by our headmaster, Mr. Gillingham, will include an overview of our curriculum, a tour of the campus, and a short question and answer session. Sign up today!

• Way to go, Parents! Conference week meals were a huge success. Thanks to ALL of the families that helped pull off a great week of meals for our hard-working, dedicated teachers & staff!

• Next Thursday, October 23rd, is our next PSO meeting, 7:00-8:00 p.m. We will discuss upcoming events to include the Book Fair, Read-A-Thon, Fun Run, Uniform Exchange, and more. We look forward to seeing you there and having more parents volunteer and become involved.