Middle School

Historically, schools have been divided into two stages, primary and secondary, with little thought given to how students would make the change from one to the other.

An increasing number of students moving from primary to traditional secondary schools “lose the plot” – their interest in their work drops off and they don’t improve much on their upper primary educational standard.

The ‘Middle School’ approach recognises that young people in upper primary and lower secondary are going through significant changes in their bodies as well as their emotions. These changes also affect them spiritually. They are beginning to become more adult like. They start growing (often in spurts), can become more awkward and clumsy, they talk more and feel more restless, and they start showing a greater interest in the opposite sex.

Children of this age can exhibit swings of emotions, from high to low and back again in a very short space of time. They are no longer ‘kids’ but are not yet adults.

Middle School students start asking a lot more questions and are not satisfied with “well that’s just how it is” responses. They are getting better at solving problems for themselves and they become more argumentative, not taking things for granted.

In the area of faith in God they are up and down too. They want to see faith making a difference in people’s lives and they need to feel they belong to a group of believers.

Middle Schooling endeavours to take all of this into consideration. That’s why our Middle School students still have one main teacher, their PG teacher (similar to Primary school) for 30-60% of the time. The benefit is that there is at least one adult who really gets to know them well and who can care for them in their learning and relationships. These teachers are meant to be a bit like a pastor. There is also the likelihood that students will have their PG teacher for one or more specialist subjects such as Science, Maths, IT or PE.

This structure helps students feel known and cared for. As well as that, from a Christian/pastoral care point of view, we see our job as assisting parents and care-givers in helping their children find and take their place in God’s kingdom. We need to help them to see that God wants to be involved in every area of their life including the life of the College.

The Middle School curriculum is designed to help our students understand God’s intentions for His Creation and also to see what part each of us is meant to play in it.

It is also during this time of life that young people start to question their parents’ faith and start searching for a faith of their own. Our prayer is that during their time in our Middle School they will come to accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord and grow in their faith and daily spiritual walk with the Living God. 

For further information, please contact our Head of Middle School, Mr Warren Hall.