Primary Thoughts
New Beginnings
Neil Mufson, Head of School

I often wonder if I were destined to be in schools for so much of my life because I carry such strong memories of my own early schooling. I can still picture walking into the classroom on my own first day of Kindergarten. Mrs. Beaulieu was at the door to greet us and seamlessly separate us from our parents. She then directed us to play on the huge locomotive and train cars that occupied half of our very large room and that she had fashioned out of very large boxes and construction paper. Soon we were playing, forming nascent friendships, and taking the first steps towards independence from our parents. It was an exhilarating new beginning, at least for most of us.

In schools we are so fortunate to have abundant new beginnings. There is the start of the new school year, the start of the new calendar year, and the start of Spring with its resplendent signs of new life. Summer also brings its own start of consolidating gains, adjusting to a less structured routine, and making the most of plentiful opportunities for fun, fresh air, and new activities, places, and people.

With young learners especially, actually every day brings the promise of a new journey. This is part of what I love about working with these ages. There are constantly new connections, new learning, new questions, new discoveries, and new skills introduced and mastered. One factor that drew me to PDS for my own new beginning is the way the school embraces all the possibility and joy of this stage of life while remaining grounded by the deepest expertise in what our young learners most need.

Your children’s days at Primary Day this school year, like the 76 prior years at PDS, will nourish their bounding intellects, their expanding sense of what it means to be a community member, and their growing practice of what it means to be a lifelong, fully engaged learner. Their days will be full, their minds engaged, their joyful spirits nurtured. Of course academics will be important, but where we will also excel will be in partnering with you to help develop good people.

I often think of that seemingly larger-than-life cardboard train of my own first day of “real” school and the journey that was ahead. At PDS we are beginning, supporting, and boosting your children’s lifetime voyage of schooling, with all its promise, all its excitement, and all its beginnings. The faculty, staff, and I are here to guide your children and you with all the twists and turns ahead. Please be sure to call on us when you have a question, concern, or idea. We will do the same. In the meantime, know that I am so grateful that you and your family are “all aboard.”