Middle

Middle school is about growing up as a student but in a phase of the school which retains a family approach. Students meet more subject specialists and a more varied timetable. They meet seven or eight different teachers each week, yet remain in the care of a husband and wife Form Tutor team. Students are cared for pastorally by those who also know them in academic settings.

Close links between home and school are still valued. The Middle School embraces and celebrates the passing of a young person's development from a child to that of a young adult. It is a joy to see students develop an understanding of their gifts and abilities and their strengths and their weaknesses.

Students are encouraged to take responsibility for themselves in increasing measure. This extends to taking responsibility for their own learning, organisation, behaviour, attitude, relationships, and very importantly, for their own faith and relationship with God. We enjoy cross curricular and cross age group projects where the emphasis is on sparking imaginations and sowing seeds for what their future might hold as they learn to invite God to direct their futures.

We use two scriptures as benchmarks to help us assist the development of our students. The first is the short passage that speaks of Jesus' episode at the temple as a twelve year old, in which he seeks to begin to be 'about his father's business.' Luke 2:49

The second passage describes the transition from 'childhood to maturity.'
I write to you children,
Because your sins are
forgiven for his name's sake...
...I write to young men because you have overcome the wicked one.
I write to you children because you have known the father...
...I write to you, young men,
Because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the wicked one.
1 John 2:12-14

(What is here written to young men, also applies to young women)
Year 8 culminates in our Barmitzvah course which takes the Jewish idea of celebrating this important rite of passage.