The middle school program builds skills and habits as students are challenged through interdisciplinary studies and expanding opportunities.
Middle School Overview
Wildwood’s middle school students are confident collaborators who find excitement and challenge in an active learning environment where teachers and advisors understand and fully support adolescent development. At its heart, the middle school program nurtures student voice and choice, challenges students to deepen their higher order thinking, and offers increasing opportunities for intellectual inquiry.
Building Skills and Habits
As project-based learning takes on further depth and complexity, students sharpen their abilities to communicate clearly, develop a concise argument, analyze someone else’s reasoning, think critically, and imagine real-world applications for what they’ve learned. They speak up, they respectfully disagree, and they learn from teachers and from one another. It’s a process that builds confidence in their thinking at a crucial age, and prepares them for a robust, engaging upper school experience.
Strengthening A Sense of Self
The middle school years are a time for establishing independence and engaging in self-discovery. With an increasing array of opportunities to learn, hone technique, experiment widely, and try, fail, and try again, students discover who they are and who they want to be at Wildwood and beyond.
Project Highlight
Looking Back and Doing the Math: 7th Grade Math Students Explore Prices, Percentages, and History
For their culminating project of the unit, 7th graders combined the study of percentages with economics, history, and a bit of creativity.
Middle School Environment
The shift from elementary to middle is manifested both intellectually and physically, as 6th grade students progress from Wildwood’s elementary campus to a distinctly separate middle and upper campus designed for deeper learning, increased independence, and opportunities to immerse themselves in new clubs, sports, events, and activities.
In grade-specific Advisory, small groups of classmates reflect on who they are holistically as learners, tacking current event topics that deepen their social-emotional learning, support them academically, and foster adult and peer-to-peer connections. The Habits of Mind and Heart and values of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging are fluidly represented through the curriculum and daily activities, providing a set of values and skills that will serve students throughout their studies and life.
