What is Morning Exercise (or Morning Ex)?

Soon your children may come home sharing news about things they experienced during the day’s Morning Exercise. If you’re not sure what they are referring to, here is some background on Morning Ex so you have a better context for talking about it with your kids.

Since 1901, Morning Ex has been an important part of school life at Parker. Students assemble every Monday and Friday for a 40-minute curriculum-based program to share common ideas and learning opportunities.

While most presentations stem from classroom curricula, Morning Ex also provides a space for students to debate current events, teachers and outside guests to speak about important world and local issues, the community to become aware of social topics and devise ways to take action, artists and musicians to share their talents and students to learn how to present projects and ask or answer questions with self-assurance in front of their peers and be members of an audience.

The Morning Ex program is an integral part of the school’s curricula and is not an open forum for outside speakers or presenters. The Morning Ex Committee, which consists of Upper School students and faculty representatives from the school’s four divisions, vet all programs. The Committee aims to protect the integrity of Morning Ex and ensure presentations have an appropriate classroom focus.