Boarding

Boarding at Bement is much more than living at the school you attend. Boarding at Bement opens doors to a whole new kind of education, connecting our students on and off campus to unique local and regional resources in a transformative residential life curriculum. Located in Historic Deerfield and just minutes away from the famed Five College area that includes Smith College and Amherst College, our boarding students prepare for secondary school in close proximity to many of the schools they may want to attend. Boarding students in particular can leverage our rich local and regional resources to elevate the curriculum at Bement, increase their depth of knowledge, and become more independent, responsible, and involved in the community.

Our community includes both international and domestic boarding students in grades 3-9, allowing students at a pivotal age to gain an understanding of the wider world and to cultivate open-mindedness, compassion, independence, and collaboration. Our boarding community is immersed in, and a vital part of, our school population, resulting in deep, lifelong friendships between our day students and our boarding students. We offer a warm, nurturing, down-to-earth environment, and each of the five dormitories feels like a real home. Students live, study, and eat meals together, creating strong bonds and a responsibility for one another.

We want our students to feel ownership over their living space, where they’re free to make cakes from scratch in the full kitchens, study on the couches, and play with dorm parents’ children and pets. Just as they would at home, students help care for their dorms with daily and weekly chores. Each weekend, we strike a balance between relaxing, studying, and exploring our location in small-group outings, like biking, hiking, visiting a museum, attending a concert, dining out, skiing, or taking a day-trip to Boston.