Academics

Prepped for Success

From day one, our team works together to design a curriculum that’s tailored for each girl’s success, during her four year journey toward graduation and beyond. Our goal is to help her expand her comfort zone, with classes that focus on one-to-one learning, teach critical thinking and strategic analysis, and help perfect her problem-solving skills. 

Support for Your Learning Style

Our educational model is focused on the development of personal skills as well as academic prowess. With a 10:1 student-to-teacher ratio and an average class size of just 16, our devoted faculty have the time to get to know every single student. The focus is on building a trusting bond that ultimately makes classroom learning even more productive, with the teacher able to understand and support each student’s unique learning style. 

Our Unique Approach

Our hybrid schedule is a defining feature of our approach to academics, developed with the input of students, faculty and staff, and reflecting our values of academic excellence, community and collaboration. Classes rotate on a daily basis so that students take them at different time slots each day, allowing for both adaptability and innovation. This schedule is also designed to better meet the needs of students who are involved in after-school activities and sports. 

Extended periods two days per week translates to fewer classes on those days, but longer class time, ideal for deep work on specific projects, in the science labs, and so forth. 

Additionally, our schedule features weekly advisory meetings, two opportunities for co-curricular activities, and ‘What I Need’ (WIN) time for students, and is enhanced by a Weekly Reset school community period. 

Discover Your Voice 

Merion Mercy Girls learn how to communicate effectively, eloquently, and persuasively. This is a rare skill today, and our students are often commended by college professors and industry leaders on their superior writing abilities - an asset in every career. We pride ourselves on the articulate writers, passionate speakers and critical thinkers that our Mercy education produces. Written and oral presentation skills are so important they’re taught in every classroom, and are enhanced by an Effective Writing Class for all sophomores. With a Merion education, girls gain the tools and the confidence to express themselves in whatever they do.

Innovation First

We actively prepare students for the careers of tomorrow, at pace with the rapid technological advances in our society. Our focus is on forging 21st century levels of collaboration, communication, creativity, and digital citizenship, and as such we continually develop, evaluate, and refine approaches to education that leverage emerging technologies, support collaborative learning, and bridge the physical/digital realms. These skills are developed across our rigorous curriculum, STEAM initiatives and 17 AP courses. 

Our Innovation, Discovery and Design Studio is an interdisciplinary space dedicated to empowering our students to ideate, design, prototype, and evaluate. By integrating design thinking and inquiry across disciplines, the space serves as a powerful learning environment for students to bring their ideas to life, through the creation of scale models, podcasts, videos, documentaries, working machines, programmed "smart" devices, and 3D-printed or fabricated artifacts.