The Middle School phase of a young person’s life is often challenging. Young adolescents go through a significant period of change, physically, socially and emotionally. Transitioning from being a small and highly dependent child to an independent young adult is a complex process which must be managed alongside maintaining an eye on academic growth. 

Peer, societal and media influence play a huge part in our middle school students’ lives. Our students enter Grade 6 as elementary students and exit Grade 8 as high school students. The transformation which occurs during those few years is hugely important in shaping the minds, self-esteem and direction of our students. As such, SZPAG views middle school as a distinct phase within the secondary school and adopts appropriate teaching, assessments and wellbeing activities to support our middle school students.

Assessment in the Middle School 

SZPAG follows the Massachusetts Framework of the Common Core Standards for English medium subjects. Assessment in the middle school consists of continuous Standards Based Assessment (SBA). The curriculum at each grade level focuses on the grade level standards for that subject, which clearly indicates the level of complexity of thought for each given task. Students will have opportunities to revisit skills so that deeper embedding of concepts can occur.

All standards are assessed against rubrics and follow a 1-4 scale. The table below outlines the descriptor for each level.

SZPAG has a live grade book which is accessible to both our students and parents via Schoology. Regularly visiting the gradebook of your daughter is actively encouraged. It is essential that all of our students and parents have access to the Schoology app: Schoology app for Apple and Schoology app for Android.

 

In addition to the internal assessments, our students will also sit the external MAP test in Reading, Language, Math and Science twice a year. MAP is the Measure of Academic Progress and is used by American Curriculum schools worldwide to benchmark student performance at any given time against expected US norms. MAP tests are individual and each time a student sits a MAP test they are given a personal Rasch UnIT (RIT) score and target for their next test.

Wellbeing and Pastoral support

 

Students in the high school are supported by their Homeroom teacher, their Head of Grade and the school counselor.