Belmont Hill would be better off having Form III in the Upper School instead of the Middle School. Most students at BH disagree with me on this, as out of 184 respondents, over 68.5% disagreed with the statement “Form III should be in the upper school,” with the remaining 31.5% agreeing. This topic may seem relatively insignificant – after all, aren’t we just talking about changing Form III’s classification label and making some modifications to its daily block schedule? However, this switch is actually very relevant to students’ experience at BH. There’s a reason why it’s the norm for schools across the country to assign the 9th grade as the first year of high school: it’s simply the best system to prepare students for college and for life beyond.
Clearly, freshman year is an important one. It’s the first year where grades, disciplinary violations, and extracurricular participation all count for college. Whereas the role of a 7th or 8th grader is to enjoy life and act like a middle schooler, the role of a high schooler is to start the transition to adulthood and to build a resume for college. In most schools across the world, having the 9th grade serve as the first year of high school helps to emphasize this momentous transition to students. The label of being a “high schooler” serves as a constant reminder to freshmen that courses, grades, and extra-curriculars start to actually matter, and that these things should be taken seriously. As a result, there is internal pressure on the student to start joining clubs, developing career interests, and generally to start becoming an adult. At Belmont Hill, this is not the case. Under the current system at BH, where Form III is considered part of the “Middle School,” many students do not immediately recognize the importance of this shift to high school, and continue engaging in unproductive middle school behaviors for yet another year. The experience of “shifting to the high school mindset” that students would typically be forced to undergo in freshman year is postponed to sophomore year. The end result is that students have one less year to prepare for the rigors of college and life beyond, and have to scramble to compensate for the lost time. This is something that I experienced going into this school year as a sophomore, and I’m sure the same is true of many others at Belmont Hill as well.
Of course, there is the leadership argument to consider in favor of keeping Form III in the Middle School. Belmont Hill’s website states that “Ninth Grade at Belmont Hill is unique in that the boys become the leaders of the Middle School rather than the bottom of an Upper School.” However, I believe that this offers little to no value to members of Form III. The “leadership effect” would only apply if the Middle School was kept separate and independent from the Upper School, both in terms of physical location and in terms of the student body’s perception. Otherwise, it would be hard to claim that boys from Form I and II specifically look up to Form III as leaders, as opposed to boys in Form V and Form VI. After all, there is no point in assigning Form III to a leadership position in the Middle School when the only real distinction between the Middle School and the Upper School is based on scheduling. While it’s true that there are minor leadership opportunities for members of Form III, such as serving as the leaders of middle school clubs, this is insignificant compared to the benefits of having an extra year of high school that I have previously detailed.
I have to acknowledge that this entire article is speculative at the moment, as Mr. Bradley has confirmed that having Form III in the Upper School is currently impossible from a logistical perspective. The school would have to find a way to fit four forms of students into an already-packed lunchroom, and there would be various complications relating to practice space for Upper School sports. Regardless, if Belmont Hill ever gets the chance, it’s clear that the student body would be much better off with the addition of Form III to the Upper School. Thousands of students have passed through this school, and I wonder: For any one of those alumni, what if making that mental transition a year earlier was the key, missing ingredient that could have resulted in a major breakthrough in life and led to extraordinary success?
