APS Viewbook Page

Remembering the past

Experiencing today

Anticipating the future

At Aiken Prep, we know what works for our coeducational day students in preschool through twelfth grade.

Aiken Preparatory School celebrates the magic of every child’s formal educational years, years when curiosity is high and active minds seek challenging experiences. Whether in preschool or in twelfth grade, every child is a unique individual at Aiken Prep.

We Don't mold our children to fit the school; we shape learning to fit the development of our children. Small classes and a low student-teacher ratio ensure that our students receive individual care and attention. Nobody gets lost in the crowd at APS, so our students get personal guidance, positive reinforcement, and careful monitoring of their progress.

Our students sit at the center of our educational process, and they are not overshadowed by subjects. Our routine, curriculum, and methods of delivery incorporate flexibility to capitalize on our students’ strengths, allow extra attention when needed, and encourage independent discovery and inquiry. Our students become comfortable with themselves and with others. Self-confidently, APS students engage in active, dynamic academic lives while they strive for personal excellence.

At every age, children experience the challenges of growing up. When students feel comfortable talking with adults they respect and trust, these challenges become natural. Teachers at Aiken Prep are excited by children learning. They laugh and play with students, listen carefully and respectfully to every student, and guide our students firmly but fairly along the path to excellence. Our students form life-long bonds with teachers. Alumni visit former lower school teachers; graduates return and seek out mentors. Students at Aiken Prep value and remember their teachers’ support, patience, and energy.

Teachers at Aiken Prep understand every child’s development. They nurture each child’s delight in discovery and understand that learning involves mistakes and frustrations. When an APS student throws in the towel, our teachers hand back the towel with quiet words of support. Our teachers keep listening, talking, and encouraging until our students’ frowns and frustrations disappear. Our teachers don’t give up, nor do they expect our students to give up. Our students rise to the challenge.

At Aiken Prep, education is a shared endeavor, a joint effort of guiding hands. Teachers work closely with each other, and parents and teachers communicate often in car pool lines, at formal conferences, and through Thursday folders and frequent report cards. Inside the classroom, on the playing fields, and in the lunchroom, students and teachers share opinions and strategies as easily as they exchange phone numbers and books. We’re a team whose goal is the growth and success of every community member.

Through our collaborative efforts, we celebrate a diversity of experiences and thought. Sharing their many talents, APS parents feel comfortable contributing ideas, volunteering as room parents, participating in class projects, chaperoning field trips, and organizing school-wide fundraising events. Our teachers welcome parents, and Aiken Prep students rely on their parents and teachers to work together to expand and enrich educational opportunities.

Excellence depends on attitude as well as aptitude at Aiken Prep. We set high standards for our students and provide the encouragement and support needed to get them there. We help our students to be active problem-solvers, to engage in cooperative learning, and to be independent, resourceful learners. At APS, it’s okay to reach for excellence, and our students do. They earn honor roll places and school awards, they qualify for academic recognition beyond our school, and they win local, regional, and state competitions.

Reflecting a liberal arts tradition, our sequential school-wide curriculum provides stepping stones for a lifetime of learning, and it challenges our students to excel. Not only do our students strive for personal excellence in reading, writing, math, and science, but also in foreign languages, computer, art, music, and physical education and athletics. Delivered through a balance of innovative, experiential, and traditional learning, our curriculum allows our students to develop their strengths and find their personal passions. Based on individual needs and the expectations of the schools they will attend after leaving Aiken Prep, our students acquire communication and thinking skills essential for today’s and tomorrow’s world. Our classes are not just for college; they’re for life.

At Aiken Prep, nobody sits on the sidelines. We don’t allow our students to stand and watch. We expect them to participate, and they do. APS students lead assemblies, run meetings, grow tomatoes, act in plays, explore coastal ecology, race around buildings to monitor pulses, build toothpick bridges, write books, play wheelchair tennis, order lunch in Spanish, organize events, and share their energies within the community of Aiken. As they participate in interscholastic or intramural athletics, our older students learn to be modest in victory and gracious in defeat. All APS students appreciate that discoveries made on the playing field and beyond our school walls are as profound as those made in the classroom.

Founded in 1916 to serve boarding boys in grades four through nine, Aiken Preparatory School merged with Aiken Day School in 1989. Since then, our present school has evolved into a vision of the future with links to the past. Current Aiken Prep students proudly belong to a family with long-standing and rich traditions. Thursday assemblies, the Run-for-the Woods, Gold Bars, Sports’ Days, the Barrier Island trip, and the leap into the pool after graduation connect our students of today with those of yesterday and tomorrow. Visits with successful alumni, graduation awards, plaques lining our halls, and trophies and banners displayed around campus inspire students to work and to excel so their names live on in the school archives. APS students are inspired by the history of the past to create ideas for the future.

Fitness of the mind and body is equal to fitness of the spirit at Aiken Prep. Our standards for excellence extend beyond the academic. We expect our students to be honest, develop a strong work ethic, show concern and respect for others, be responsible and resourceful, and honor their commitments. At Aiken Prep, students don’t quit, and locks are not essential supplies. Our citizenship system places all students on equal footing - the academic achiever with the student in need of extra help; the star athlete with the sports rookie. APS students have the opportunity to earn a place on the citizenship honor roll as high as their efforts, attitudes, and behaviors merit.

Our standards of conscientious behavior, courteous manners, and pride in one’s appearance focus our students on shared expectations. APS students stand when guests visit classrooms and welcome visiting students with warmth and graciousness; our students resolve conflicts with compromise and hand shakes. Every student at APS shares in the responsibilities of waiting tables in the dining room. Aiken Prep’s uniform helps our students stand taller, and proudly wearing their blazers, APS students strive to achieve their personal best.

For all of our students, the known and yet to be discovered define process and product. Weaving strands of knowledge into a whole tapestry, we challenge our students to understand and apply new and existing knowledge via hands-on exploration and experimentation. Our experienced-based program meets individual needs, personalizes learning, and allows our students to actively demonstrate their knowledge in diverse ways.

Our commitment to child-centered learning ensures that subjects don’t stand alone. Integrated and experiential, they connect the past to the future, technology to aesthetics. Math links orderly processes to potential careers; literature explores contemporary concerns through voices of the masters; history examines current events with eyes on the past; computer generated art and the science of roller coasters capture hearts and minds.

Our history as a “home away from home” rests intact. We remain proud that our commitment to nurturing the whole child, to instilling a love and desire to learn, and to fostering pride in accomplishment results in well-rounded individuals ready to tackle their futures and realize their dreams.

Our program attracts families seeking a strong education and the solid values not available in many public schools. Parents find the personal attention, well-designed structure, careful supervision, close monitoring of academic progress, and loving, nurturing environment of our school a perfect match for their children.

At APS, our community is small enough to realize that individuals are critical, but large enough to broaden our students’ horizons. Remembering and honoring our proud history, experiencing everyday to its fullest, and anticipating life beyond the APS campus inspire every member of our Aiken Prep community to fulfill dreams of the future.

When you visit our campus, meet our students, and talk with our teachers, we believe you’ll agree that, at Aiken Prep, we know what works.

Send mail to jboehner@DueSouth.net with questions or comments about this web site.