Grades 5–8

Middle School offers increasingly sophisticated concepts across subject areas: deep mathematical thinking, challenging literature, scientific experimentation, physical education, and opportunities to engage the world creatively with music and through studio and performing arts. At Green Acres, these serve as the foundation of our program, with teachers and students building on them as they question, debate, experiment, and reflect collaboratively on what they are learning. 

We expect students to work hard and to think hard. Our program is built around challenging projects that are collaborative and authentic to develop the kinds of skills our students will be honing for the rest of their lives.

And, most notably, our students learn to love learning. No skill or predisposition is more integral to success in our fast-changing world. By inspiring students with thought-provoking challenges and by allowing students to explore their passions within the structures of the curriculum, Green Acres helps to inspire the innate curiosity that all children have.

Our students learn to advocate for themselves, for those around them, and for their beliefs and passions. Green Acres students are empowered as learners to find their voice and to use it. As a result of the very small student-teacher ratio and the excellent, engaging faculty, students learn to seek out the answers to their problems, to ask when they need help, and to understand when they don’t know something in order to figure out their path to learning.

While we most certainly prepare students to enter high school, we also prepare them to lead meaningful lives as teenagers and adults. We help them understand themselves, as learners and as people. We guide and encourage students to learn from their mistakes and to resolve conflicts. Our students leave Green Acres full of the confidence they need to take on both the challenges we see today and those we have not yet even imagined.

Academics and social development are expertly blended to form a strong advisory program for our 5th–8th grade students. The overarching goals of the Middle School advisory program are to ensure that each student feels included as an integral part of the overall community and finds ways to be academically and socially successful. During the advisory period, students engage in discussions and activities related to important life topics—a list that is generated by both students and advisors. Topics include health and wellness, digital citizenship, social justice, diversity, problem solving, independent thinking, study skills, time management, communication skills, stress management, goal setting, and self-reflection.