The Nightingale-Bamford School

Founded in 1920, Nightingale is an independent K—12 girls' school that provides an unmatched liberal arts education adapted to the modern world. We welcome motivated students of varied background, interests, and talents—and cultivate in each a capacity to understand and act on issues of global significance.

Nightingale is the place where your daughter can become the best version of herself. We know the power of one mind and one heart, as well as many minds and many hearts, to effect change: change a person, change a climate, change a prejudice, change the future. This is the place for meetings of minds, for opposing positions, for academic strength and creative exploration, for well-formed arguments and strong voices.

This is the place that welcomes questioning discoveries and challenging opinions, reveling in the conclusions and contradictions, honoring the extraordinary power of girls and young women. This is the place where we rise to meet your daughter's heart and mind, where the support from her teachers is surpassed only by the support from her peers, where our commitment is to guiding the limitless energy and originality of her ideas into the fullest realization of her success.

Our vision is for Nightingale students to be joyful learners who have the intellectual depth and the courage to be critical thinkers, compassionate citizens, and agents of their own lives; in doing so, we advance equity for the betterment of all. To achieve this mission and vision, we will educate girls’ minds and hearts by:

• Infusing their lives with meaningful relationships;
• Teaching them to value difference as a source of strength and means of growth;
• Empowering them to question the status quo with confidence, empathy, resilience, and reason.

The Nightingale-Bamford School is committed to diversity in an educational environment of responsibility, mutual respect, and empathy. We value individuals whose differences include, but are not limited to, age, ethnicity, family structure, gender, learning style, physical ability, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Fulfilling this mission is an ongoing process requiring active participation and frequent dialogue.

All members of the Nightingale community—students past and present, faculty and staff, administrators, parents, and trustees—are expected to keep their minds and hearts open to difference as a source of strength and a means of growth.

Nightingale provides a liberal arts education adapted for the modern world, a unique combination of the canonical and the contemporary that develops wide-ranging curiosity and learning from Kindergarten through senior year. Across all disciplines, our teachers encourage creativity, independence, and self-reliance, as well as intellectual discipline and the ability to work and play effectively as a group.

Whether she starts in Lower, Middle, or Upper School, every girl at Nightingale comes to be known through every age and stage, every talent and trial. She works with teachers who celebrate that no two girls are alike, teachers who tailor their work to meet her individual needs, teachers who exhibit at the Whitney and are nominated for National Book Awards, teachers who never stop learning. She also comes to know herself and all that she is capable of. We create a place where she can learn to speak her mind and her heart—a place where she can gain the knowledge and insight to have something to say and the confidence and courage to say it.

As a parent, you can only imagine what your daughter will want to do in life. But with a Nightingale education—with an analytical, poetic, searching, and daring mind and heart—she will be ready to become the woman she wants to be. Through explicit skill instruction and thoughtful curricular integration, the girls are prepared to use technology responsibly and creatively to contribute actively to an increasingly digital and collaborative world.

At Nightingale, your daughter will join a community of engaged citizens and learners and will be guided by insightful teachers who will help her to find her own voice and use it with confidence. With encouragement and support from both faculty and classmates, she will learn to be academically adventurous, to take risks, and not to be afraid of failure. Nightingale is a school that harnesses the power of educating both the mind and heart, inspiring girls to go beyond barriers and guiding them toward a life of purpose and meaning.