Middle School

Our middle school classes focus on closing learning gaps, identifying personal learning styles, and teaching strategies to help students to be successful in the classroom and in high school.

Metacognition is emphasized to help students to “think about thinking”, develop short and long term goals, and to see the big picture. Middle school projects employ grading rubrics to emphasis the importance of focusing on the process in addition to the product. As a result, our students are productive, collaborative, and better prepared for the high school grades.

Our Language Arts curriculum encompasses guidelines from the Florida State benchmarks, concentrating heavily on the areas of Language and Composition. Language arts instruction places an emphasis on the development of oral to written expression (talking, listening, discussing, analyzing, and brainstorming for ideas prior to writing.) In addition, language instruction incorporates theme-centered and structured linguistic approaches to teaching language skills. Learning is a collaborative effort that provides opportunities to learn pragmatic skills and engage in oral rehearsal. As students participate in formal and informal discussions, they listen to the ideas of others and contribute information to acquire new knowledge. Multi-sensory and brain-based learning is used to capture the student’s attention and to promote a love for reading and writing. Read alouds are facilitated by the teacher and integrate Reader’s Notebooks to reinforce the use of comprehension strategies, working memory, and higher order thinking skills. Paragraph writing, editing, and organization are a focus of creative and expository writing lessons, while students also learn to demonstrate their knowledge via oral and digital media presentation.

Students have a full, rotational schedule including math, science, social studies, computer lab, physical education, and a variety of electives.