Welcome to Middle School!
In Middle School, we focus on foundational building: building students’ content and skills knowledge, building smart study habits, building critical thinking, and building a curiosity about learning that will carry them through high school, college, and beyond. Students actively engage in core academic classes through Socratic discussions, labs, debates, and collaborative work and receive feedback through the use of rubrics to improve their performance. During these years, the annual Third Quarter Presentations (3QP) will increasingly build research and presentation skills beginning with humanities studies in the 5th grade and extending into STEM subjects throughout the rest of their middle school years.
In addition to core academic classes, all middle schoolers participate in choir or piano, 1 additional arts class, and either an Advisory Period (5th/6th) or Life Skills/College and Career Readiness (7th/8th). Our Advisory period gives our youngest middle school students a daily check-in space that will incorporate weekly executive functioning skills, building toolkits for academic success, and weekly seminars. Our Life Skills classes are structured to help students learn more about themselves, their unique learning styles, and their strengths. We help students improve the way they learn, participate effectively in team settings, and collaborate with peers. We track student progress through a variety of assessments that help us evaluate critical thinking skills, including verbal and writing skills.
The skills and concepts explored during these years are focused on college and life preparation and are aligned with college freshman orientation seminars. Our students develop organizational, planning, writing, and communication skills in college prep classes to ensure their journey to college and to a career is a seamless one.
During these transitional years as student life becomes more demanding, we want them to learn how to learn, to have fun as they build the habits and confidence necessary to tackle the rigor and discipline required for academic and artistic success.
To meet the unique needs of our students, middle school students run on two different schedules. Our youngest middle schoolers in 5th and 6th grade begin their day with an Advisory period and then transition into a schedule of Academic and Arts classes. This unique schedule allows them to move in their own pod while still preparing them for the fast-paced environment of the campus. Contrastingly, to accommodate the advancing age of our 7th and 8th-grade students, their schedule transitions to allow for some integration with the high school community while still maintaining a schedule that supports their middle school needs.
