This year Oak Hill Academy created a physical space dedicated solely to our students’ wellness needs: the Warrior Wellness Center. Conveniently located within the heart of our academic building, this initiative reflects our unwavering commitment to nurturing the holistic wellness of our student community.
Why did we do this?
Well, as a boarding school where life continues in community after the final class bell, the Academy has always attended to the holistic wellness of our students. You can see how seriously we focus on adolescent health by examining the lifestyle programming we provide. We begin by cultivating meaningful connections with each student, allowing us to grasp their unique identities, backgrounds, strengths, aspirations, and needs. We serve healthy, fresh food. Nourishing meals and ample sleep are integral parts of our daily routine. We offer outdoor after-school activities daily. We also maintain a balanced approach to technology, particularly mobile phone usage, in order to ensure overall well-being. All of these collective efforts underscore our commitment to wellness.
Beyond these daily emphases on wellness, we chose “Wellness” as our annual theme for the 2021-2022 school year. This meant that during that year, numerous special events and our entire year-long advisory curriculum were connected to the concept of wellness.
We’ve defined the scope of wellness as having 5 primary domains:
physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
All of these elements intersect and interact with one another continuously, so a mainstay in the design of the Warrior Wellness Center is that it will contain design features that touch on each wellness domain. The space is welcoming and comfortable and will support a diverse range of wellness activities. We’ll have a coffee shop area for youth group meetings. We’ll teach yoga class on the big-screen TV. Peer tutoring and ping pong tournaments will coexist in the space. We’ll have bean bag chairs so you can sit and read and think. We’ll host movie nights, conduct first-aid training, and provide counseling space. We even intend to use the space for guest speakers on wellness-related topics.
Our students’ wellness is vitally important to us, and we’ve found that if a student is well, growth can occur. And that’s our #1 goal – a campus full of growing, thriving students. We invite you to come see it for yourself!
