Elaine Loft, Staff Writer
After the academic year concludes in early June, Derryfield is far from idle during the ensuing sunny summer months. The classrooms and theater, playing fields and courts, and even the Dining Commons, are filled with students, thespians, and athletes. From mid-June through mid-August, over 500 young people, ages 6 through 18, converged on the Derryfield campus.
Derryfield Repertory Theater (DRT), in its 20th season, welcomed a record 174 participants to its two summer sessions. The enthusiastic casts produced “junior” versions of Willy Wonka, Dear Edwina, Something Rotten, The Most Epic Birthday Party Ever, Elf, The Musical, and Mean Girls. DRT campers partake in workshops such as improvisations, acting, singing, scriptwriting and dancing, and are also kept entertained with spirit days, in which the color teams (green, yellow, blue, red) earn points in a friendly competition. DRT is led by Alex Hunton and David MacNeill, with the assistance of a dozen camp counselors, including Derryfield students and college theater students from around New England.
While the auditorium was filled with dance and song, the courts and turf hosted a throng of athletes. In late June, Courtney Cheetham, the Derryfield varsity girls basketball coach, led her annual DS Cougars Co-Ed camp. Nearly 50 enthusiastic hoop players, in grades three to eleven, developed their fundamentals, techniques and game knowledge. The program emphasizes a sense of self-worth, discipline, motivation and sportsmanship. This past week, Derryfield varsity field hockey coach Katie Kithcart-Bulk worked on passing, receiving and shooting skills, along with intense goal scoring drills, to prepare players for the 2025 season.
Although the summer is a time for rest and relaxation, academics are not completely forgotten. A plethora of classes, taught by DS faculty, meet the needs of both Derryfield students and members of the community. Jumpstart Your College Essay is an intensive writing workshop, designed to create a space for rising 12th graders to begin the creative process of drafting their college essays. The students work to find ways to uncover their unique story and draft an essay that truly reflects their values and life experiences. On the final day, a college admission officer reads all the essays, and provides the college perspective. This summer English teachers Regina Assetta and David Baroody led a record three sessions of this very popular one-week program. Also on offer was a five-day SAT/ACT prep class, taught by Derryfield math teachers Chris Induni and James Watt. With standardized tests again the norm in the college application process, this class often fills quickly, as was the case this year.
In addition to the Derryfield summer programs, the school is also the longtime host of Breakthrough Manchester (BTM). For over 30 years, this intensive six-week daily summer program has brought an “intentionally crafted combination of rigorous academics mixed with fun, high-energy summer experiences to the Derryfield middle school campus. Teaching fellows, a mixture of college students and high school juniors and seniors interested in learning to teach and develop leadership skills, spend six weeks in the classrooms, with coaching from professional educators.
Thanks to the addition of the Matarese Dining Commons, all of the full-day program attendees were able to partake of lunch served by the Derryfield chef and staff. As during the school year, the Commons serves as a central gathering point of the community, uniting our summer visitors over crowd favorites like tacos and soft serve ice cream.
Derryfield also hosts a variety of summer programs run by other entities, including LetGoYourMind, a STEM program using LEGO bricks, motors, elements of simple machines, robotics, stop motion animation and programming Minecraft and the Magic Touch Soccer Academy.
As the 2025 summer season draws to a close, planning is already underway for next year, including additional sports camps, a day camp, and driver’s education. To learn more about Summer at Derryfield, check out the Summer Programs webpage.
