Middle School Curriculum
The Middle School curriculum, like its Lower School counterpart, uses the Chinese standards of compulsory education (CCS) as its knowledge base. Its commitment to supporting the growth and development of rigorous scholars, intrepid explorers, creative builders, and resilient, self-aware individuals, remains the same. This is all the more important for young people as adolescence begins. Equally important is the truism that skills and abilities are meaningless without the disposition to use them well. A vital part of this phase of education as students move into their teenage years – not just in China but across the world – is to maintain that innate sense of curiosity and enthusiasm that younger children usually have in abundance. Perseverance and commitment will, of course, continue to be encouraged. In Middle School, we will continue with the Responsive Classroom approach to the pastoral care of our students. This appreciates the strong connection between social and emotional learning, students’ well-being, self-management, and good progress in all aspects of their education. As in Grades 1 to 6, it will involve building and maintaining a close relationship with students so that the advisor is alive to the way in which what is going on in a student’s life might affect his or her educational progress. As adolescence begins, this can be a demanding task, requiring considerable tact and strong inter-personal skills. The start of the day will bring the group together to build and reinforce personal connections and community practices which are essential in any successful school, and life. Activities will be varied, from discussion and reflection, to academic work as well as mindfulness. Subjects studied will remain the same, although English will have a greater literary element. We will continue to use project-based learning as a means of developing interdisciplinary understanding. Themes will still be derived from the Yuwen textbooks and from over-arching questions for project-based work related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
