Gabbin Family
School division/Student graduation year(s): Lower School (Class of 2033 & Class of 2034)
How many of your children attend or have attended Westminster?: 2 children
How long have you been affiliated with Westminster School?: 2 years
What are/were your child’s favorite things about life, activities, or classroom experiences at Westminster School?
Athena:
Athena loves that Westminster takes children seriously. She enjoys being asked to think, explain, defend an idea, create something original, and participate in conversations that are bigger than simply finding the right answer. As she has gotten older, I think she has especially appreciated being given more independence and being trusted with increasingly complex work. There is a seriousness to the academics, but not at the expense of curiosity, creativity, or personality. She likes feeling that what she brings to the classroom matters.
Iris:
What Iris seems to love most is the experience of school itself. She likes the routines, the assemblies, the traditions, the special events, seeing familiar people throughout the day, and knowing that there is a larger school life happening beyond her classroom. She spent a year at Griffin Academy before moving into Westminster, so she had a small window into that world before she officially joined it. Now she gets to be part of the things she once watched her sister experience, and there is something really sweet about seeing those traditions become hers too.
As a parent, what are/were your favorite things about being a part of the Westminster community?
One of my favorite things about Westminster is that parents are not asked to stand at the edge of their child’s school experience. There are meaningful ways to participate in the life of the school, to know the people who teach and support your children, to build relationships with other families, and to help create the traditions and experiences that become part of childhood.
That matters to me because school occupies such a large part of a child’s life. I do not want those years to feel like something important happening somewhere else. Westminster makes it possible to feel connected to that part of their world without needing to control it or intrude on it.
Over time, that participation creates something deeper than involvement. You begin to know children outside your own child’s grade, their siblings, their parents, and teachers who may never directly teach your child. The school starts to feel less like an institution your family attends and more like a community your family helps shape.
That is probably my favorite part. Westminster gives parents the opportunity not just to witness their children’s school years, but to be meaningfully present in them.
What is one thing you would want a prospective family to know about Westminster School?
I would want a prospective family to know that choosing a school is really an act of faith in the future. You are making a decision for a child who is still becoming, whose strengths, interests, confidence, and needs will continue to change in ways you cannot fully predict.
So the question is not simply, “Is this a good school?” or even, “Is this a good fit right now?” The more important question is whether the school has enough depth and flexibility to remain a good place for your child as they grow.
That is what I think Westminster does especially well. It offers structure without rigidity, high expectations without reducing children to performance, and community without requiring sameness. It gives students enough consistency to feel secure and enough room to develop into themselves.
A school should do more than educate the child who walks through the door on the first day. It should be able to make room for the person who eventually walks out.
“So the question is not simply, ‘Is this a good school?’ or even, ‘Is this a good fit right now?’ The more important question is whether the school has enough depth and flexibility to remain a good place for your child as they grow. That is what I think Westminster does especially well. It offers structure without rigidity, high expectations without reducing children to performance, and community without requiring sameness.”