Together Everyone Achieves More

Our faculty at Main Street Middle School is divided into collaborative teaching teams who meet daily to discuss curriculum, instruction, assessment, and their students in order to ensure student success. Even though the teams may look different structurally, they each work toward the same goals and objectives for student learning.

The Vermont Middle Grades Task Force spent the past three years examining research, studying practices, and evaluating national documents on effective middle level education. As a result of this work, Vermont middle schools now have a specific document called Middle School Is Not A Building.

This document outlines the essential goals, elements and practices for creating appropriate learning opportunities for adolescent students in Vermont.

Below are the specific task force goals related to curriculum, instruction and assessment to give you an idea of the work at hand and the nature of our middle school experience for students.

• All middle level learners participate in challenging, integrated, real world, standards based curriculum that promotes conceptual understanding, 21st century skill development, and knowledge acquisition.
• Instruction is engaging, personalized, and differentiated to meet individual student learning needs.
• Student learning is measured by appropriate assessments, resulting in continual learning and high achievement.
• Organizational structures and a school culture of high expectations enable both middle level students and educators to succeed.
• Relationships for learning create a climate of intellectual development and a caring community that includes having an adult advocate for each student.
• Ongoing family and community partnerships provide a supportive and enriched learning environment for each middle level student.
• A supportive, safe, and healthy learning environment advances learning and promotes overall student and educator well being.
• A democratic system of continual collaboration by all stakeholders allows for authentic student voice and a shared vision to guide decisions.

 

Early adolescence, ages 10-15, is a unique time of life, one filled with extraordinary potential, excitement, and challenge. The rapid and dramatic development that occurs during this stage of life – intellectual, socio-emotional, and physical – prompts students to ask rich questions about themselves and the world around them.

--Penny Bishop, Co-Chair of the Vermont Middle Grades Task Force and Director of Middle Level Teacher Education at the University of Vermont