Middle School

From the Head of Middle School

The Middle School years are a time of growth and discovery, when girls begin to define their talents and interests, develop important study skills, and take on increased responsibility as members of the school community.

In the environment of a girls’ school, students in the Middle School at Spence are easily comfortable with the give and take found in an effective and dynamic classroom. With individual guidance and encouragement from their teachers and advisors and with support from their grade deans, students become more independent in their learning and more critical in their thinking. Students are empowered to meet challenges and learn to develop their own confident voices in a caring environment. 

At Spence, Middle School students follow a broad course of study that includes the five academic subjects, courses in the visual and performing arts, computer science and technology as well as physical education. In Middle School, emphasis is placed on the development and reinforcement of essential study, research and discipline-specific skills. These include the analysis of primary source material; the close reading of literature; expository writing in English and history; observation and analysis of data in science classes; the study of increasingly complex grammatical structures in the foreign languages; and the introduction of algebra in mathematics.

Students progress from Grades 5 through 8 in a program that is designed to offer opportunities and challenges at each grade level. In Grade 5, the school day centers on the homeroom, where students meet with their homeroom teacher for course work, study halls and class meetings. Beginning in Grade 6, students work with different teachers for individual subjects and learn to manage a more complicated daily schedule.

Over four years, as students become more independent learners, their course work increasingly engages them in more complex problem solving and critical thinking. By the end of Grade 8, students are well prepared for the important transition to the Upper School, where a wide range of choices in academics and extracurricular activities awaits them.

Karen Sullivan
Head of Middle School