The Bement School

The idea that launched The Bement School in Grace Bement’s living room in 1925 lives on today on our picturesque campus in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Mrs. Bement wished to create a schooling option for children and families where the focus would be more than reading, writing, and arithmetic; she believed in educating the whole child and creating balanced young citizens of the world. Bement’s core values–compassion, integrity, resilience, and respect–reflect her vision and pervade our school community, Kindergarten through ninth grade and beyond.

Bement students love coming to school each day to share in their learning and development with one another. Each morning as students arrive on Old Main Street, clusters of classmates, young and old, gather to await their friends and dash off to classrooms together. As students progress through Bement, they come to know other children from across all ten grades through our daily family-style lunches and cross-divisional activities.

What emerges each year from this intentional mixing of ages is a school that feels as much like a family as anything else. Indeed, nowhere is that culture more evident than in Bement’s dormitories, where approximately fifty students live and learn as a family each year, studying, playing, eating, and exploring the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts together under the caring supervision of their dorm parents.