Middle School Curriculum

In the United States, many states have “middle schools”. Not all of the states have middle schools and some states still have “junior schools”; others have elementary schools that go up to grade 8 and then students start high school. Middle schools are phasing out junior schools but middle schools are still not widely accepted throughout the US. This middle school model is considered to be a fairly recent development in the education system as they only began to appear during the 1960s.

Who is it for?

Middle schools are for students who have attended primary school, prior to attending high school. They can be found in states that use either 3 or 4 levels of schooling and are made up of children between the ages of ten and 14; however, these ages can vary somewhat. Middle school typically begins in the sixth grade (although sometimes it is the fifth grade) and continues through to the eighth grade (although in some places it is the ninth grade). Students attend middle school from Monday to Friday each week and they have 180 instruction days in the nine months that the schools operate.

Educational Focus

The middle school boundaries regarding educational focus can be quite vague and generally vary quite a lot between the districts in a state. Generally speaking, the overall goal of middle school is to help bridge the educational gap between primary school and high school. This goal is universal across districts as well as states.

In middle school, students can expect to participate in subjects such as Mathematics, Social Studies, Language Arts and Science. Often a foreign language is also included in middle school, which may be Spanish, French or another one that is offered by individual middle schools. Educating students on applying critical reasoning, thinking skills, problem solving and the rationale behind strategies are the foundation of the education system in middle schools. In middle schools, it is believed that children that are between ten and fourteen years old are in a distinct stage in their development which involves similar characteristics physically, emotionally, socially and mentally.

Middle school education combines the elements from both high school and primary school. Teachers that teach different school subjects usually work in a team with the same set of students. While each of the teachers provide instruction in their dedicated subject, they closely interact between teachers of other subjects to promote a sense of togetherness and community within the school.

In the classroom, the classes are typically theme-based, tying together subjects so they are not quite as generalized as in primary school but are not quite as segregated as one might find in high school.

Goals

While the overarching goal of middle school is to bridge the academic gap that can be found between primary and high schools, this is sometimes where the similarities in goals end. Middle schools can operate with very different goals and a middle school’s uniqueness can be found in the duties that the classroom teacher may be responsible for. In many middle schools, teachers can wear many hats: resource person, teacher-advisor, curriculum planner, tutor and seminar director. However, in others, these roles may not be encouraged by the school management.

Another common goals of middle school is to take on the responsibility as well as provide the opportunity for students to develop their career goals. Middle schools often encourage students to investigate and explore different career options that they are interested in.