Our Mission
The mission of Westport Day School is to provide powerful and effective education that inspires, fascinates, and transforms students who have been beset by academic and clinical challenges such as anxiety, depression, learning disability, and/or school refusal. This mission is carried out by providing therapeutic, value-driven education based upon the tenets of the executive functions.
Our Values
Our values make us therapeutic and transformative. Modeling and instilling values of presence, ethics, and wisdom promotes independence and empathy in our students and in ourselves. Our approach fosters resilience, curiosity, and creativity in dealing with life’s challenges.
These are our values:
Wisdom
Gaining wisdom involves a desire to learn, to grow, and to change. Wisdom requires skillful UNDERSTANDING AND INTENTION. Having the right kind of understanding means seeing things as they are rather than as we want them to be. Skillful intention means fostering the sincere intention to live well; in other words, to live with presence, ethical sense, and wisdom.
Ethics
To live an ethical life, one must act in accordance with one’s guiding principles. Ethics requires skillful SPEECH, ACTION, AND WORK. Not harming self or others is our guiding principle. Beyond this, we seek to speak, act, and work in ways that are helpful to the members of our school community.
Presence
To be present means to bring your full self to the present moment, happily and healthfully. Presence requires skillful EFFORT, CONCENTRATION, AND MINDFULNESS. Having the right kind of effort means starting or restarting tasks, even difficult ones. It means persisting and stopping when appropriate. Concentration requires focus and is important in sustaining and shifting attention. Mindfulness means awareness of the present moment. We are mindful when we are aware of our thoughts, feelings, and surroundings.
