The Winsor School is a 5–12 private, college-preparatory day school for girls in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1886.

It competes in the Eastern Independent League^[2] and is featured on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.^[3] In late 2007, The Wall Street Journal identified it as one of the world's top 50 schools for its success in preparing students to enter top American universities.^[4] In April 2010, it was named one of the top 10 prep schools in America by Forbes.^[5] In 2018, Niche ranked it as the best all-girls school in the United States, the 15th best private school in the country, and he 2nd best high school in the Boston area.^[6]

History

In 1886, Mary Pickard Winsor started a six-month school in Boston for her aunt's daughter and friends. Winsor, who had been teaching at her mother's school in Winchester, began with eight little girls in a private home on Beacon Hill. She quickly established a viable and growing school for girls, which bore her name, and began sending its graduates to college in 1895. She established the present structure of eight classes, grades 5–12, offering a ninth, graduate, year (which has since been discontinued).

"Miss Winsor's School" occupied a number of different locations on the Hill until a group of parents asked her to be the director of the school they intended to build. They hoped to secure for children in private schools "at least equivalent advantages given to those in the Public Schools, as to fire-proof construction, light, ventilation, and other sanitary arrangements." They formed a corporation in 1907, bought land on the Fenway, and hired the Boston architect R. Clipston Sturgis to build "the most perfect schoolhouse." It included a library, science laboratories, art studios, and a gymnasium and swimming tank. The students and alumnae requested that the new school be named for Miss Winsor. President Eliot of Harvard, who was very supportive of the project, suggested the motto "A sound mind in a sound body."

In 1910, the Winsor School opened with 225 students. Winsor continued as head of the school until 1922. She wanted to prepare women to be self-sufficient and self-supporting, and hoped they would be competent, responsible, and generous-minded. She influenced the growth of her school and showed continued interest in it until her death in 1950.^[7]

Academics

Winsor has a reputation for strong academic excellence and has the ideology that its students "should be taught to think and learn independently in order to gain the competence and confidence necessary to be lifelong learners and strong, courageous women."^[8]

In the Upper School, Winsor requires its students to take four years of English classes and a minimum of: three years of a language, three years of mathematics, two and a half years of history, two and a half years of science, two and a half years of arts, seven semesters of physical education, and three semesters of health and wellness.^[9]

Students must also complete the Global Studies program during one semester of their junior year. Students can take both literature and history courses in either Africa, China, India, the Middle East, or Russia, and these courses culminate in a end-of-semester research paper on a specific regional topic.^[10]

The school offers many opportunities for its students to engage in STEM fields including electives like engineering design courses that introduce skills such as coding, computer-aided design (CAD), and 3D printing.^[11]

Winsor offers 12 AP courses.^[12]

Arts

Fifth and sixth graders have drama, arts, and theatre classes interwoven into their schedules. In seventh and eighth grades, however, students can take a wide variety of art electives that include sculpture, Shakespeare performance, dance, set design, painting, digital art, and more.^[13]

In the Upper School, Winsor offers electives in drama, dance, visual art, and music. More specifically, drama courses consist of acting, directing, and theatre tech. Dance electives consist of both group and independent dance. Visual art courses consist of painting, drawing, architecture, printmaking, ceramics, photography, and art history. Music electives consist of chamber orchestra, guitar, percussion, music technology, and piano.^[13] Winsor also has a choir called Small Chorus and an all-senior a cappella group called Senior Small.

Winsor students frequently put on theatre productions in collaboration with students from the Belmont Hill School and the Roxbury Latin School.^[14]

Athletics

Winsor has a range of sports teams on the varsity, junior varsity, and middle school levels.^[15]

• Cross country
• Field hockey
• Volleyball
• Soccer
• Crew

• Basketball
• Hockey
• Squash
• Swimming
• Curling (Club)

• Track
• Softball
• Crew
• Lacrosse
• Tennis
• Sailing
• Golf (club)

Facilities

The school has expanded its facilities over the years, including a turf playing field in 2008, a full gymnasium in the 1920s, a science wing in the 1980s, expanding the library more than once, adding classrooms in the 1990s, reconstructing a new dining hall, classrooms, laboratories, and faculty work space in 2004, and most recently, renovating many classrooms, offices, and corridors. The Winsor Dining Services are My School Dining.

They have recently finished building a new addition to the school, costing upwards of $80,000,000. This addition has included a new gym, workout facilities, as well as new music and performing arts facilities. This building is called The Lubin O'Donnell Center for the Performing Arts, Athletics and Wellness.

Notable alumnae

• Helenka Pantaleoni, silent film actress, humanitarian, and founder/long-time head of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF
• Barbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimer Paley, socialite and style icon
• Tenley Albright, figure skater and surgeon
• Martha Field, first female law clerk on the U.S. Supreme Court and professor at Harvard Law School
• Laurie Glimcher, physician-scientist
• Lisa Monaco, federal prosecutor
• Leslie Dewan, entrepreneur and co-founder of Transatomic Power^[16]
• Genevra Stone, Olympic rower

References