Friends' Central Middle School

For students entering grade 6, Middle School is a new realm. For most, the transition includes a change from self-contained classrooms with a single teacher to navigating the demands of a changing schedule and increasing academic demands. Guiding students through this process is an important aspect of every grade 6 teacher’s role.

Grade 6 is a year of tremendous academic growth. Students build upon strong elementary school foundations and begin to acquire new, more sophisticated skills essential to their success in Middle School and beyond. Some examples include reading for more than plot, inferring authors’ messages, and noticing literary techniques; drawing on prior knowledge and making predictions; learning the difference between working in a group and active collaboration; and developing plans to manage long-term assignments. 

Students entering grade 7 are mastering the transition to Middle School and are working to understand and manage the responsibility that comes with increasing independence. They are beginning to ask more of themselves, taking on some leadership roles in Middle School, preparing to step into the many demands of grade 8. Grade 7 is an important year in our students’ academic development. They move from the important lessons of grade 6 to increasingly abstract and independent thinking, viewing their world and the greater world in a more analytical way. Some examples of this include working effectively within a group by helping the group to problem solve, supporting a point of view with textual evidence, using prior knowledge to ask pertinent questions, and challenging assumptions thoughtfully and carefully. Grade 7 students are learning to understand their own thought processes and the way they learn.

Grade 8 is a critical year in our students’ preparation for Upper School and beyond. With the help of teachers, grade 8 students have learned about themselves as learners. They understand how to approach different aspects of their learning – how to study for tests, how to approach projects, how to choose group members who will complement them - to ensure future success. They know how to use the resources around them effectively – advisors, teachers, support staff, family, and friends. They understand how to safely and appropriately take risks – whether intellectual or otherwise. They learn to create and support an original argument, making increasingly sophisticated connections between and among different disciplines. They become self-directed learners, planning their own approaches to projects and mapping out their timelines.

For all three grades, the Middle School daily schedule is intentionally designed around balance. Middle School students have five academic classes a day with passing time and breaks built into the daily routine. Each class meets for forty-five minutes. It is important that classes rotate by day to ensure an equal amount of instruction time over the course of the year, while also varying the time of day that subjects are taught to maintain student engagement. Our daily schedule also features a forty minute Community Block--a time dedicated to community building and auxiliary programming. Recess and lunch breaks are scheduled each day for all grade levels to ensure ample opportunity to move about, connect with peers, and enjoy fresh air around campus. Students both start and end their academic day by having dedicated time with their advisor. The day ends with an athletics practice which is incorporated into the daily schedule.

Trips
Middle School teachers use the surrounding area as an extension of the classroom. Science classes, for example, study the local watershed at neighboring parks. History teachers often use the rich history and cultural offerings of Center City. In addition to day trips, 7th grade students travel each year to Echo Hill Outdoor School on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and students in 8th grade go to Washington D.C.  

Mini-Course
Mini-courses are a signature program in the Middle School. Teachers design three-day classes that students take in the week before spring break. The courses are interdisciplinary, cross-grade, and involve a special field trip related to the subject. Recent courses have included History of Medicine, Sports Stadium Architecture, and Filmmaking.

Affinity Groups
All Middle School students participate in affinity groups based on particular aspects of their identity, such as race, gender, or religion. Affinity groups meet regularly to discuss their experiences, develop skills related to identity-formation, and engage in courageous conversations. 

Assembly Programming
Every Monday, the entire Middle School gathers in Shallcross Hall to kick start the week with an engaging and spirited assembly. Oftentimes, the programming is crafted by our very own students, as clubs and organizations give presentations on everything from Black History Month to Climate Change.

Student Leadership
Middle School students are well-positioned to take on active leadership roles in the school.  Whether they participate in Student Government or the Assembly Committee, students are encouraged to take on greater responsibility and lead their peers both inside and outside the classroom.

Service
Learning through service and instilling a commitment to community service is an essential part of life at Friends’ Central. All Middle School students participate in service projects every Wednesday for about an hour and a half. As we expose our students to a broad range of projects on and off campus, the notion of a world bigger than their own becomes a reality.

DEI Conference
Students in the Middle School host an bi-annual Diversity Conference featuring 125 students from local schools, along with our own student body. The day typically features workshops led by FCS teachers and discussions surrounding DEI issues facilitated by students.

8th Grade Showcase
Eighth Grade Showcase is an FCS tradition that celebrates our students’ passion and ingenuity. Each spring, eighth grade students complete a capstone project which showcases a special interest or skill, particularly one that is not displayed in the classroom. Recent showcases have featured a variety of creative pursuits including cooking demonstrations, dance performances, and juggling.

Guest Speakers/Community Engagement
Friends’ Central is incredibly fortunate to be a part of an extended community of scholars, artists, activists, and professionals. Over the course of the year, Middle School students are introduced to a wide variety of topics from outside speakers. Last year students heard from civil rights leaders, filmmakers, photographers as well as a Holocaust survivor.    

Relationships
Students learn best when they feel supported and encouraged. Our approach to education is couched in relational teaching, as students look to teachers for guidance and reassurance. Through strong relationships, teachers are able to nurture a genuine sense of independence and a space where students are safe to be bold.

Middle School students participate in affinity groups based on particular aspects of their identity, such as gender or religion. Affinity groups meet once per month, led by a faculty advisor and two student leaders, to discuss some of the challenges and rewards that come with that particular identity. Each group facilitates an assembly presentation to help educate members of the community. For example, the Christian affinity group talked about assumptions that are often made about all Christians, while our Muslim affinity group taught the student body about four of the most important holidays in Islam.

We are standing on the deck of a boat in the light rain, bundled up in our foul weather gear, and a hush falls over the group as we watch a family of deer nibble grass on the shore. Later, it stops raining. Morale is high. So is the volume level as the chorus of students’ crescendos to the chorus of “Call Me Maybe.”

The glow from the sun fades, and the clouds have moved on, revealing the tapestry of stars spread out on the sky. Inside the tent, we wield our headlamps like lightsabers, piercing the darkness with the beams of LED brightness. As we burrow into our beds and tuck in our mosquito nets, the lamps click off one by one. We fall asleep wrapped in the warmth of Annie’s voice as she reads to us from a well-loved copy of Walk Two Moons.

Moments like these are at the heart of the experience of Echo Hill. Each year that we travel to Echo Hill Outdoor School on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, there is a familiar pattern to the experience. The students arrive with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. They love the food (the famous cornbread usually makes an appearance at the first meal), and they are deeply dismayed that there are no flushing toilets. They battle the elements and their own homesickness. They develop an increased comfort with each other, and their support networks both widen and become stronger. They learn and grow in ways that have a lasting impact on their sense of self.

This trip is one of the major cornerstones of the Friends’ Central seventh grade experience, one that students tend to remember and discuss for years to come. We believe that this is such an important experience for so many reasons. There is the sense of cohesion it brings to each class. There are the environmental messages, presented to the students when they learn about SLOP (Stuff Left On Plate) and how to reduce their impact on the planet. The students experience the power of “challenge by choice,” a method of instruction in which they set goals that will challenge them individually (in keeping with Vygotsky’s theory that the Zone of Proximal Development is the most productive for new learning) and then receive support in meeting those goals. Finally, they practice firsthand the Quaker testimonies of simplicity and stewardship, and they came away with an increased awareness of the comforts they may have previously taken for granted.

We use nets to dredge up pools of muck from the bottom of the swamp, then sift through it with our hands, pulling out beetles and dragonfly larvae and leeches as we chat about how ecosystems change over time. For most of us, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a blissful departure from the lives we lead at home. At the same time, it is a surprising introduction to ourselves, to the people we did not yet know we could be.

Middle School Mini-Courses transport students in grades 6-8 to places and activities centered in and around Friends’ Central and the city of Philadelphia. During the week before Spring Break, the teachers in the Middle School organize a series of workshops – or mini-courses – for the children of the Middle School. Through collaborative and cooperative learning, the students accomplish many goals because of their willingness to take risks and work interdependently. They are able to maximize their own and each other’s learning, while gaining from each other’s efforts. Students are encouraged to think “out of the box,” and to listen to one another, while engaging in a variety of activities and experiences.

Through these mini-courses, the sometimes artificial boundaries between subject matters can be torn down, and students see how all knowledge is interconnected. Education is not, and should not be, limited to merely acquiring information in the classroom; it should also bring that learning to everyday actions and behaviors that produce effective citizens who will contribute to their communities.

Mini-Courses that were offered recently included:

• Good to Know, which showed students many of life's little skills, from changing a tire to building a fire
• Blood, Sweat and Tears: The History of Medicine examined the history of medicine - from ancient times to the present.
• The Big House explored the history and design of the modern prison and the politics of mass incarceration.
• Pompeii included a study of this cataclysmic event in historical, social, and scientific context, with students examining film, documentary, museum exhibition, and both fiction and nonfiction reading.
• In Design, Make, and Market, students designed and built custom ice cream molds to help a local business create one-of-a-kind ice cream wedding cakes.
• In art + science / science + art aesthetics + stewARTship / stewARTship + art, students explored science and art through natural materials, while learning about our environment and local environmental artists.
• In Bridge Over Indian Creek, students worked with the Overbrook Farms community to design, plan, and begin construction of a bridge that was washed out.
• Past and Present Historical Sports Buildings in Philadelphia gave students a look at sports in Philadelphia, featuring trips to Citizens Bank Park, the Palestra, and Franklin Field.
• In Mythbusters, students explored science the “Mythbusters” way, with a signature mix of the scientific method, gleeful curiosity, elbow-grease ingenuity, and, of course, hands-on experiments, letting students put myths to the test!
• The Sports Reporters encouraged students to debate topics and current events around sports, select the all-time best players in each sport, create a “SportsCenter” segment, and travel to a local news station to go behind the scenes of sports coverage.

Learning through service and instilling a commitment to community service is an essential part of life at Friends’ Central School. All Middle School students participate in service projects every Wednesday for about an hour and a half. As we expose our students to a broad range of projects on and off campus, the notion of a world bigger than their own becomes a reality. Our students learn to be comfortable in new and different situations, to find commonalities with people different than themselves and, most importantly, they learn that they can make a difference in the School community and beyond.

Click here read more about Middle School Service Projects and Clubs.