Applications are closing soon for January 2025! Apply now here. 🌎
Applications are closing soon for January 2025! Apply now here. 🌎
Ever since we launched our high school three years ago, one question has consistently come up: “What about middle school?” Families have been eager for a solution that provides younger learners, specifically ages 11 to 13, with the same “learning by doing” education experience we offer in high school.
I vividly remember attending a local homeschooling event with one of our partner organizations. Nearly every conversation I had circled back to that same question and some of our community members even created a card “Dear Raya, please open our Middle School soon @ SoH..”. It became clear to us that the demand for an innovative middle school was strong, and that’s why we are thrilled to announce our upcoming middle school launch.
But why expand now? We believe in meeting learners where they are. Over the years, we’ve witnessed the profound impact of our model on high school learners, particularly those who align with our approach to mastery-based, interdisciplinary learning. Starting earlier allows us to deepen this impact, equipping younger learners with the capabilities that will set them up to flourish.
We’ve often found that by the time learners join us in high school, we need to guide them through a process of unlearning habits that served them in traditional schools but don’t align with the demands of our model. Many struggle initially to transition to being independent thinkers and self-directed learners. They’re also adapting to an interdisciplinary approach that breaks down subject silos and to the rigor of project-based learning that challenges them to apply their knowledge in actionable ways. Starting earlier allows us to build these skills and mindsets earlier, ensuring learners transition seamlessly into a system designed to cultivate innovation and creativity.
More importantly, it provides an essential alternative for families seeking a more inspiring educational experience at a critical stage in their child’s development. This need is particularly pressing in middle school, where a growing segment of families is actively looking for innovative solutions outside of traditional schooling. By addressing these needs earlier, we can better prepare learners for the demands of an uncertain future, empowering them to think critically, solve problems, and thrive in an interconnected world.
So how are we reimagining the middle school experience?
We will be expanding our core curriculum standards, the Human Literacies Framework, to middle school levels.
The middle school will serve as an excellent scaffolding for our high school, ensuring that learners have the opportunity to develop their knowledge, skills, and mindsets in creativity, discovery, thought, society, technology, flourishing, and quantitative skills. This would require us to add middle school learning outcomes for key credit areas.
The standards will be benchmarked against the common core standards and Next Generation Science Standards to ensure that learners are developing the fundamentals.
Just like in our high school, learners will engage with real-world challenges to develop skills, knowledge, and mindsets essential for navigating today’s world. Each challenge invites learners to explore interdisciplinary concepts while working on impactful, hands-on projects.
For instance:
💡 What are some ways that the middle school experience will be different?
Sessions will include even more gamification and quests, as well as the occasional “craft” session to enable learners to work with their hands. The ratio of live sessions would be higher for middle school learners as this younger age group requires even more in-person socialization time and more scaffolding. In other words, they will have more synchronous rather than asynchronous work.
We understand that the needs of middle school learners differ from those of our high schoolers, given their developmental stage.
Our model is particularly well-suited for families who are actively collaborating to supplement online learning with in-person activities like sports and socialization – areas we can’t always provide as an online school. That’s why the middle school schedule is thoughtfully designed around a 20-hour week, leaving ample time and energy for learners to engage in face-to-face interactions and community activities.
We also recognize that partnership with parents will play an even more significant role at this stage, ensuring learners are supported both academically and socially. Additionally, our growing network of hub partnerships will provide further opportunities for in-person engagement and local collaboration, strengthening the experience for middle schoolers.
Our middle school is designed for learners who thrive by learning through doing and engaging in hands-on projects that connect directly to real-world challenges. It’s an ideal fit for families seeking an alternative to traditional education, particularly those frustrated by outdated methods and eager for a more meaningful and personalized approach.
The program also resonates with aspiring global citizens who value the opportunity to connect with peers from around the world. At its core, our learning experience and curriculum is driven by the needs of our ever-changing world, equipping learners to contribute meaningfully to society and the planet.
