The Seven Hills Portrait of a Learner

One of our collective goals going into the 2024-25 school year was to reflect on and revise what we used to call the Portrait of a Graduate and are now calling the Portrait of a Learner. The Portrait of a Learner is meant to be a guiding star by which teachers, coaches, administrators, and other members of the community can design educational experiences that bring out the best in our students. It identifies the qualities and values we strive to foster in students not just by the end of their journey, but at every step and milestone, from pre-kindergarten to pre-calc, from early childhood to senior year, from the acorn to the oak.

Over the course of the first semester, groups of teachers and administrators from across the four divisions, led by our division heads, met to rethink and redesign the portrait. Our goal was to craft a document that speaks to what is most important to us as a school and what we hope for our students now and in the future.

We wanted it to be readable and concise, so that it could actively inform our choices around curriculum and teaching. Along the way, we’ve shared our progress and our various iterations with focus groups of parents and students, as well as with the faculty as a whole. I’m grateful to everyone involved for the time and thought that they have put into this project.

I’m happy to share the new Seven Hills Portrait of a Learner with you today. I believe that by identifying the qualities and values we seek to develop in our students, this new portrait will guide us in better living out our mission of engaging hearts and minds and cultivating each student’s unique capabilities.