Meeting for Worship
Students and faculty in three divisions gather weekly (or more) in shared silence to reflect, listen, and, when moved, offer messages that speak to the community. This practice nurtures attentiveness, empathy, and a sense of connection across ages, providing space for students to connect with their own inner Light.
Quaker Values Across the Curriculum
From Early Childhood through Grade 12, Quaker principles guide teaching and learning. Inquiry, collaboration, multiple perspectives, and respectful dialogue shape classroom experiences. Service learning, community engagement, and peacemaking practices help students connect academic study with purposeful action.
Friends Foundations: Ninth Grade
All ninth graders take Friends Foundations, a course that introduces Quaker history, testimonies, and practices. Through inquiry and reflection, students explore themes such as peace, integrity, equality, and stewardship, considering how these principles guide life at Friends.
Quaker Youth Leadership & Intercultural Dialogues
Each year, six Upper School students participate in the Quaker Youth Leadership Conference (QYLC). This gathering, which brings together students from Quaker schools across the country, aims to provide a space for students to engage in discussions, workshops, and activities that promote leadership development, community building, and spiritual growth as they explore Quaker values, principles, and practices in community.
Our QYLC students, in partnership with Friends’ Intercultural Dialogues Club, plan and facilitate an annual virtual dialogue for Quaker schools students across the country. Past dialogues have focused on the 2024 presidential election and Quaker practice.
Circle of Friends
Students in Grads 7-12 meet regularly in our Circle of Friends, a space for students to gain understanding about and find ways to strengthen the ways they live out Quaker beliefs and testimonies in school and beyond.
A Community Guided by Core Beliefs
Across academics, the arts, athletics, and daily interactions, Friends Seminary strives to live its core beliefs: that each person has inherent worth and that education should inspire both personal growth and responsibility to others. Read more about the shared core values that unify us by exploring our Faith & Practice.