Charleston Collegiate recognizes that students make the transition from childhood to young adulthood during their years in the Middle School. During this time, students are discovering themselves as well as figuring out the balance between the demands of personal responsibilities and the need for supportive, nurturing adult guidance. This is a task that the Charleston Collegiate Middle School team of faculty embraces with enthusiasm and great care.
Students in the Middle School enjoy an average class size of 12-15 and are each involved in an advisory system that enables them to receive individual guidance and support. Trained professionals in the Academic Achievement Program also offer support and/or accommodations for those students with unique learning needs. In the Middle School at Charleston Collegiate, we strive to promote the personal qualities that make each individual student unique, as well as to develop responsible global citizens and effective future leaders.
The academic expectations in the Middle School are challenging and there is an emphasis on exposure to broad artistic, cultural, and social experiences. Students in the Middle School take core academic classes in English, history, health, mathematics, Science, and Spanish as well as explore various art forms in the fine arts, drama, music, film, and media courses. The students are under the guidance of a core group of teachers dedicated to the Middle School team. Rather than being generalists, the team of Middle School teachers is made up of specialists in specific subject areas bringing rigor and expertise to the curriculum. The teachers are also experts in the developmental needs of students at this age group and receive professional development training in this area. The Middle School team of teachers has common planning time to discuss and address the needs of each of our learners both socially and academically. During their team plan time, teachers are also able to create cohesion in the curriculum, and develop interdisciplinary units of instruction since students at this age need to be able to see the connections between what they are learning in each subject area to attend to their cognitive development.
Because there is a tremendous amount of growth and development cognitively, socially, and physically between the ages of 10 and 14 at Charleston Collegiate School we group the 5th and 6th graders together in the Intermediate Level of the Middle School and the 7th and 8th graders together as they prepare for the High School.
Intermediate Level of the Middle School - Grades 5-6
The Intermediate Level of the Middle School is for students in grades 5-6. This special grouping of students is designed to ease the often difficult transition from a Lower School self-contained classroom into the Middle school, and to meet the specific needs of students at this in-between age. 5th and 6th grade students begin their day with their advisor who assists them with preparation and organization for the rest of the day's classes and activities. Twice a week, the students also end their day with their advisor to again ensure that they have all of their nightly assignments recorded, all the materials that they need to bring home, and to monitor their academic progress and ensure their social well being.
Students in the Intermediate Level are grouped together for their academic classes however their schedule is created so that they are able to take various levels of mathematics and Spanish instruction depending on their academic development, proficiency levels, and learning needs. Intermediate Level students are also grouped together (and separate from older and younger students) at lunch time and break time, for character education, arts classes, and social activities, and are under the direction of the teachers when they move from one classroom to another in order to attend to their social development. Because students at this age are very concerned with peer relationships, developing those relationships, and discovering their own personalities, this guidance for personal growth is very beneficial. In addition, since Intermediate Level students need structured activities and physical skill development, they are grouped together for physical education classes and have P.E. classes daily. Again, the objective of the Intermediate Level is to work closely with students in grades 5-6 to assist them as they transition from a self-contained Lower School classroom to more independent learning their middle years and beyond.
Gretchen Batalis
Head of Middle School
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