The arts have always been a core component of curricular and extra-curricular life at Beaver. From classrooms and performance spaces within the Visual and Performing Arts Center to the light-filled McElwain Art Studio, the school boasts state-of-the-art facilities that further this important tradition.

Cultivating Creativity and Self-expression

The visual and performing arts play a pivotal role in our curriculum as well as in the extracurricular lives of students. At Beaver, we recognize that participation in the arts cultivates creativity, self-expression, and self-discipline. For that reason, we have designed our schedule to ensure that students have the opportunity to take arts courses in each grade.

Arts Participation

Studying the arts supports students as they move from concrete to more abstract ways of thinking and communicating, and encourages essential habits of mind that prepare them for the future. In the Middle School, students take a semester of theater arts and a semester of visual arts. Students take a full year of music working in both smaller ensembles and larger orchestra setting. Read more about Middle School Arts here.

In the Upper School, our three-term system gives students the flexibility to take arts courses during all four years. All ninth- and tenth-graders are required to take an arts course during two of the three terms. In the eleventh and twelfth grades, students may continue to take arts electives while pursuing a full spectrum of other subjects. We offer an exciting array of advanced arts electives – from printmaking and sculpture, to acting and play production, to music theory, chorus, and jazz band.

In our arts programs, students work individually and collaboratively. Whether painting a mural, putting on a play, or performing in the chamber ensemble, students learn to work in groups while simultaneously developing and displaying their individual talents.