Academics Overview
High School
The four years that boys spend in Grades 9 – 12 are inherently among the most formative they will ever experience intellectually, socially, and emotionally. Our mission in the High School is therefore to find the best possible balance between providing the necessary structure to shape our boys’ development in positive ways and the necessary flexibility for them to discover their particular passions and interests. From an academic standpoint, we believe that the best way to achieve that is to use the early years in High School to provide a broad base of foundational skills before allowing students a wide range of options in their junior and senior year to chart their own courses of study.
As such, High School begins at MBA with a fairly fixed set of courses across all disciplines in 9th and 10th grade. Students will complete their required study of Latin during this time, while also covering core science and math classes, along with English and US History. Even at this early stage, however, students can choose to begin a modern world language or add visual & performing arts classes if they have already identified that as a passion.
As they move through 11th and 12th grade, there are fewer required courses as we encourage students to pursue excellence in those disciplines they wish to pursue at college and beyond. Accordingly, we offer 28 separate AP classes, with multiple options in every department. Our college counseling office also works closely with boys in these grades to select courses that will accurately reflect the story about themselves they wish to project to the colleges they will be applying to.
The High School experience at MBA is therefore to some degree akin to a play of two acts, but still part of a single story. Throughout all four years of their time here we recognize that boys will need both support and opportunities and our goal is to provide them as much of either as they need. If a boy is struggling with a class, we provide long-term academic counseling, peer tutoring, and recommendations to outside tutors. All of our classroom teachers are also available for a daily help session. For boys wishing to push beyond our regular curriculum, we offer independent research projects (often in collaboration with nearby universities) and special courses in the summer, which are free to all MBA students.
Ultimately, no matter what a boy’s interests or skillset when he arrives in 9th grade, we believe that by the time he completes four years in the High School, he will have received an education that has covered both the essentials and opened up new horizons.
Montgomery Bell Academy
4001 Harding Road
Nashville, TN 37205
(615) 298-5514
