Ashley Hall News
The Gift of Time: Designing a School Day Around How Students Learn Best
July 10, 2026
Time is one of our most precious resources. How students spend their days shapes how they learn, how they build relationships, and how they experience school at Ashley Hall.
That understanding guided a year-long effort to redesign the student schedule for the 2026-27 school year. Led by Naa-Adei Kotey, Assistant Head of School for Teaching and Learning, this work brought together faculty, staff, administrators, students, and internationally recognized school scheduling experts to ask a clear and important question: How can our daily schedule better support our girls’ learning?
The answer began with listening. Older students shared feedback about their daily experiences, including workload, transitions, assessments, connection, focus, and balance. Faculty and administrators examined instructional time, curriculum needs, student well-being, and the rhythm of the school day. Ashley Hall partnered with Dr. Shannan Schuster and Dr. Andrew Taylor, experts in research-based scheduling and school design, to ensure the process was grounded in best practices for teaching and learning.
For Head of School Dr. Anne Weston ’73, the student-centered nature of the process was essential. “In nearly five decades in education, I have seen schools approach scheduling from many different angles,” said Dr. Weston. “What made this process exceptional was our commitment to engaging students in this work and keeping the student experience at the center of every decision. Schedules are often shaped first by adult logistics, operational needs, or longstanding routines. At Ashley Hall, we challenged ourselves to ask what would best support our students’ growth, learning, and well-being, and that question guided the work from start to finish.”
The result is a schedule designed to create greater balance, consistency, and purpose throughout the school day.
Why the Schedule Is Changing
A school schedule is a direct reflection of what a school values. Ashley Hall's mission calls us to know, value, and challenge each student because our goal is to help every girl become the most confident, capable, and authentic version of herself. We believe excellence is not measured by comparison, but by each student's willingness to strive to achieve her highest potential, supported by a community that recognizes and celebrates her unique strengths.
To do that well, students, and girls in particular, need time for rigorous academic inquiry, meaningful connection, reflection, collaboration, movement, and restoration. They need days that support both achievement and well-being.
The new schedule is designed to advance those priorities more intentionally. It creates a healthier rhythm for students, provides more equitable instructional time across courses, and gives teachers greater ability to plan collaboratively around student learning.
Faculty will be able to monitor pacing, coordinate major assessments and projects, and make thoughtful adjustments throughout the year. This means students should experience a more balanced academic workload and a schedule that better supports deep, sustained engagement.
How the Eight-Day Rotation Works
One of the most important changes is the move to an eight-day rotation, with days labeled A through H. This rotation allows the school day to move independently from the traditional Monday-through-Friday structure. As a result, holidays, half days, professional development days, weather events, athletic commitments, and recurring appointments are less likely to affect the same class repeatedly. Day assignments for the 2026-27 academic year are set and available to reference here.
For students, this creates a more equitable experience across subjects. For teachers, it provides a clearer understanding of instructional time throughout the year, strengthening curriculum planning and helping ensure that each course receives the time it needs.
Across all divisions, the new schedule is designed to give students more of what they need to thrive: time to learn deeply, time to connect, time to organize their work, and time to recharge. The experience will look different at each developmental stage.
Early School: Time to Wonder
In the Early School, the schedule is designed to honor the natural rhythms of young children. Thoughtful adjustments create more uninterrupted time for exploration, play, and inquiry while supporting predictable routines that help children feel confident and secure. With fewer transitions and more opportunities for meaningful engagement, students have the time and space to build relationships, follow their curiosity, and learn through joyful discovery.
Lower School: More Time in Community
In the Lower School, the schedule is designed to support the way younger students learn best. Students will spend more meaningful time with their homeroom teachers and move through campus in ways that are more intentional and developmentally appropriate. By reducing unnecessary transitions between class locations, the new schedule gives students more time for learning, exploration, connection, and the foundational routines that help them feel confident and secure.
Middle School: A Unified Schedule and Stronger Support
Middle School students will move to one unified schedule structure for grades five through eight, creating a more consistent experience across the division. The new Middle School schedule includes five academic classes per day, intentional breaks and recess, daily advisory, WIN time, Discovery opportunities, and Design Studio. These elements are designed to support focus, organization, movement, creativity, and connection.
WIN time, which stands for “What I Need,” gives students dedicated time during the school day to seek extra help, meet with teachers, work independently or in small groups, strengthen skills, or pursue enrichment. Advisory at the end of the day gives students time to check in, reflect, organize, and prepare for what comes next.
The schedule also supports Ashley Hall’s work as an International Baccalaureate (IB) candidate school pursuing authorization for the Middle Years Programme (MYP). Design Studio connects directly to the IB MYP Design subject area, giving students opportunities to use creativity, innovation, problem-solving, and design thinking to explore real-world challenges.
For more information on Discovery Time, Design Studio offerings, and campus arrival times, please click here for our Middle School Schedule Quick Facts document.
Upper School: Supporting Depth, Rigor, and Balance
In the Upper School, the new schedule is designed to support increasingly rigorous academic work while helping students manage their time and responsibilities more effectively. The rotation provides more equitable instructional time across courses and gives teachers greater opportunities to coordinate assessments, projects, and pacing. Students will benefit from a structure that supports deeper engagement, more thoughtful planning, and healthier academic balance.
As Ashley Hall looks towards the future, the schedule also helps strengthen the habits students will need for advanced study: independence, reflection, organization, inquiry, and sustained intellectual engagement.
Looking Ahead
This schedule work began with a belief that time should reflect what Ashley Hall values most: our students, their growth, and their well-being. The new schedule is a practical expression of that belief. It supports rigorous learning while creating more room for connection, curiosity, reflection, and balance. It honors the strength of Ashley Hall’s academic programs while recognizing that girls thrive when the day’s rhythm supports the whole child.
As we prepare to launch the new schedule in the 2026-27 school year, we are grateful for the thoughtful work of our faculty, staff, administrators, students, and expert partners. Most of all, we are excited for what this new rhythm will make possible for Ashley Hall students.