Learning is for Life.

Middle School MiniCourses are interdisciplinary deep dives that take place each year during the week before spring break. Dreamed up and taught by faculty across subjects, these project- and experience-based classes offer students uninterrupted learning around a single topic.

Throughout the year, GFS students test their talents in a variety of competitions, earning awards and recognition while contributing to the wider community of thinkers and creators. One example is Philadelphia MathCounts, where the GFS Middle School team won second place and a sixth grader took first place this year!  

The GFS Upper School Robotics team has entered two competitions so far this year at Great Valley and Norristown High Schools. At both, they tried new strategies, took some risks, and held their own against tough competitors. 

Congrats to the GFS Upper School Debate Club on a strong showing at the prestigious Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament. Two seniors, Andrew Li and Luke Zhong, took second place out of thousands of students!

GFS' Middle School Academic Intensives are month-long deep dives, which run twice a year in between sports seasons. Each course exposes students to a variety of subjects and different ways of learning, and the topics are built from scratch each year.

To get a peek at this distinctive learning experience through the eyes of GFS students, we tagged along with Jaylen Fountain ’29 and Amelia Swedloff ’26 to see what J-Term is really like.

Listen in on conversations between GFS Head of School Dana Weeks and students and faculty about some of the achievements and learning opportunities the school community experienced during the fall semester.

Essentially GFS, a series of interdisciplinary evening classes, launched this Fall. A successor to the school's Essentially English program, the classes were open to anyone in the community, including students and their families, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents of alumni.

In early December, author, historian, and Yale law professor John Fabian Witt '90 gave two talks at GFS about his fascinating new book, The Radical Fund.

Fifteen Germantown Friends School Upper School students have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. These awards are highly competitive, and the number of students who make it to the semifinal round represents less than 1% of high school seniors across the country.