Kent School
Academics
Academics
The defining characteristic of a Kent education is our commitment to addressing each student as a whole individual with distinct talents, passions, strengths—and tremendous potential.
Kent's curriculum expands your knowledge, deepens your understanding, and cultivates the skills and confidence you will need to contribute to the common good in a future of endless opportunity.
Learning In A Community
Strong relationships form the backbone of the Kent experience. You will enjoy an incredible range of opportunities in a personalized community setting. The transformational connections you build with your teachers, advisors, coaches, dorm parents, and classmates will spark your curiosity and provide a foundation for your lifelong commitment to intellectual and personal exploration.
Partners In Intellectual Exploration
The Kent community is made up of true collaborators: individuals who act upon a shared belief that the most meaningful achievements happen when a group of people works together toward a common goal.
A Rich Array of Opportunities
Distinctive class offerings, group projects, clubs, leadership roles, and more create nearly limitless opportunities to articulate your identity as a learner, a leader, and a citizen within the Kent community.
Kent School Competencies
Kent School is an intentional community with a central focus on equipping you with the skills that will empower you to make an impact on the broader world. We call these skills the Kent School Competencies, and they are taught in every context of our shared life—in our classrooms, in St. Joseph’s Chapel, on the stage, in our dormitories, on our playing fields, courts, rink, and river.
Kent School Schedule
Kent's schedule is designed with balance in mind. Students take, at most, four academic classes each day. This provides a consistent and predictable rhythm for classwork and homework, ensuring students have the time and energy to maximize their learning in and out of the classroom.
Graduation Requirements
To receive a diploma, a student must meet both the credit and the course requirements for graduation. Kent does not award credit for work done at other schools. The number of credits required for the diploma varies according to the year a student enters Kent:
- Third Form: 18
- Fourth Form: 13
- Fifth Form: 9
- Sixth Form: 4
Each year-long course counts as one credit. Each term-contained course counts as 1/3 credit. Each minor term-contained course counts as 1/6 credit. The course load for students is five major courses per term.
The required courses, for which a student must earn credit, are:
- English each year.
- Language — Either classical or modern, through the Kent third year level.
- Mathematics — Geometry and Algebra 2, plus enrollment in math through the fifth form year.
- Science — A minimum of two year-long laboratory sciences.
- Religion and Culture — A major term-contained course in the fifth or sixth form year.
- History — World History taken in the third form year; U.S. History taken in the fourth form year; term course elective requirement based on year of entry.
- Visual and Performing Arts — A term-contained course in both visual and performing arts.
A student entering the third form year must take New Student Seminar, a minor term-contained course in study skills and research methods.
All third and fourth form students must take Community Life. a year-long, minor, non-credit course.
The course load for students is five major courses per term.
Kent does not award credit for work done at other schools.