Taking to heart Merlin’s wise words to the young King Arthur, AHS builds a community where teachers and students learn from each other, where experience is the key to learning, and where the ability for each child to develop the independence and self-confidence necessary to pursue an intellectual or creative passion is fostered and nourished.

Academy Hill provides a challenging, safe, caring, respectful and flexible learning community for children who show early signs of exceptional ability in academics, creativity and/or leadership in order to stimulate them to achieve their full potential. We are a nurturing community that embraces differences and celebrates individual expression.

Our approach to learning fosters, rather than inhibits, the natural curiosity of gifted children and early adolescents as they become increasingly aware of the larger world around them. The development of critical thinking skills, as they are applied in the classroom, is more than just an academic exercise—it is essential for healthy civic engagement with the society that these students will inherit as adults.

As the preeminent educator of bright and gifted children in the Pioneer Valley for the past twenty five years, Academy Hill is skilled at creating the conditions where lively, active minds are engaged, nurtured and inspired. Our students will become leaders who are globally aware, work collaboratively, think critically, and who are engaged in their communities. Ours is a community built on mutual responsibility and trust, where personal ethics and moral behavior are emphasized.

Education helps to socialize children and prepares them to function as citizens in a complex, pluralistic, multi-layered, many-cultured, democratic society. We strive to encompass a culturally and economically diverse student body, where students and their families have the opportunity to experience differing lifestyles and viewpoints. The characteristics that make us unique individuals are not differences that divide us, but are qualities that enrich our community. AHS teachers, staff, students and their families benefit personally and professionally from the range of ideas, solutions, and perspectives that stem from diversity.

After you tour our web-site, we would love to welcome you to our campus. Tour our facility, observe our wonderful students and talented teachers, talk with some of our parents and meet with me and Marjorie Weeks, our Director of School Advancement.

We look forward to meeting you and your child!

Stephen Edele

Head of School