By Fiona ’20

Health and Wellness, a mandatory course for 11th graders that began with the 2018-2019 school year, will undergo significant changes in the 2019-2020 school year. These adjustments come in response to feedback from current students and alumnae.

The first major change to Health and Wellness will be a shift in scheduling from the second to the first semester of the school year, according to Health and Wellness Instructor Nicole Beck. 

“Based on 11th grade feedback, a lot of people agreed that second semester is more intense in terms of workload,” Beck said. “Having it in the first semester instead of the second semester and getting that time as a free period in second semester would probably be more useful.”

There will also be notable changes to the curriculum. In the coming year classroom teaching will be combined with the Impact Self Defense course,  which teaches students how to physically respond to attempted assault. According to Beck, there are multiple reasons for this consolidation.

“We wanted to be able to give 11th graders a PE credit for Health and Wellness,” Beck said. “We have also had a lot of feedback from seniors and people who’ve graduated Marlborough who said that Impact Self Defense taught them some of the most useful skills they walked away from Marlborough with.”

Health and Wellness was met with mixed reactions when it was first introduced at the beginning of this year.

“I didn’t understand why it was necessary for us to take this class when we had already taken a similar health class in 9th grade,” Jaiden ’20 said. “With the stress of junior year, I felt overwhelmed having what I thought would be a free period taken away.” 

As juniors weren’t given much information before taking the class, many didn’t know what to expect. 

“There was no information given about the class before school started, so I think we were all a little confused and frustrated,” Riley ’20 said. 

Beck was receptive to students’ responses and hopes the changes to next year’s course will help alleviate some of the stress students experienced this year. 

“For any new program to be successful, you have to be open and willing to revise it and make changes based on students’ reactions and how they feel they would best be served,” Beck said.