Middle School

Our teachers use real world contexts within core subjects to encourage young adolescents to explore, experiment and seek deeper answers.

Middle School Years at MIS

During these critical years, we nurture a child’s natural curiosity, creativity, and ability to reflect by providing a supportive and stimulating learning environment that embraces those qualities. This environment fosters children to become caring, active, lifelong learners who demonstrate respect for themselves and others, and have the dexterity to participate in the world around them.

The classrooms expand outside the four walls to include their local environment and global communities. Teachers collaborate to deepen the student’s learning through conceptual ideas and critical thinking and, in turn, increase their confidence and motivation. Children learn to ask questions and construct their own meaning to become critical thinkers. They are active participants in their learning as they explore issues and opportunities in real-life contexts.

To be part of MIS is to be part of a warm, welcoming community that is unique to our school. The children become friends within their own learning community and learn that it is okay that we all have many similarities and many differences.

“My kids are engaged in school! They are excited to go to class and come home asking lots of questions, too.”

“We love the connection and community built by MIS teachers!”

What parents are saying…

“The teachers believe in what MIS is doing and want to be here.”

“The teachers take time to really get to know my child.”

In the Classroom

Spanish Immersion

Middle School is a great time to join MIS with or without prior Spanish language experience.
Learning a second language enhances the first language since the learner is evaluating language structures and usage. Learning a second language (or third or fourth) triggers more activity in certain areas of the brain because it requires effort and attention to switch between languages. Children become more mindful of others, effective leaders, take time to look at situations and figure out creative solutions, filter out irrelevant information, and become more self-aware…to name a few.
Spanish language development in middle school at MIS continues through immersion in humanities and a Spanish language class. Other subject areas are taught in English. Middle School is an excellent entry point for students seeking an internationally focused education to learn a second language in a nurturing, safe environment.
Multiage Learning
MIS students are placed in a multiage advisory consisting of 12 to 14 students. These teams meet every morning and periodically during “Flex” blocks throughout the year. The Middle School advisory program prepares students to become independent, lifelong learners who feel connected to themselves and their community. Advisories create an environment in which students are well-known and supported in a small group.
Advisory Groups Provide:
- Supportive and caring relationships with adults.
- Constructive and caring relationships within a group of friends.
- Relationships with their community through service.
Ages 11-14
IB Education
In Middle School, the International Baccalaureate® (IB) MYP curriculum framework comprises eight subject groups, providing a broad and balanced education for early adolescents.
- Language acquisition
- Language and literature
- Individuals and societies
- Sciences
- Mathematics
- Arts
- Physical and health education
- Design
At the end of their MYP journey in 8th grade, students participate in a capstone “Community Project” using research, critical thinking and communication skills that require students to take action!
Inqury Based Learning
The inquiry-driven approach encourages children to use their curiosity as the catalyst for constructing meaning and reconstructing what they know to gain deeper understanding.
Inquiry:
1. Engages students with what they know to excite curiosity
2. Facilitates exploration to encourage students to start working through the idea
3. Follows with an explanation that connects students’ exploration to build a contextual sense of the idea
4. Elaborates to extend the idea in new situations to help connect the dots (meeting each student in the individual understanding)
5. Encourages students to reflect and evaluate to transfer their newly constructed meaning to new situations
The School Day

The schedules will look slightly different for each grade level, but here is an example of a Middle School schedule:
8:30 am :: Homeroom | Advisory
9:00 am :: Math
9:50 am :: Spanish
10:40 am :: Language & Literature
11:30 am :: Lunch & Recess
12:20 pm :: Humanities
1:10 pm :: Science
2:05 pm :: art | STEAM lab | design
2:50 pm :: PE
3:30 pm :: End of the day
Specialists

Our Specialists contribute to our holistic experience and encourage children’s natural curiosity and desire to express themselves through the arts, and through moving their bodies. They also promote communication, confidence, creativity, original thinking, social and physical development. MIS students develop an awareness and appreciation of music, art and theater from a range of places, times and cultures. Our Middle Schoolers get to enjoy either art, music, and/or PE every day, as part of a rotating specialist schedule.
Library
Children develop an appreciation of different types of books and a love of reading.
Art
Children begin to construct an understanding of their community, their own feelings and their environment through visual arts.
Music
Children learn to communicate in unique ways that go beyond oral language.
Physical Education
Children learn through experiential opportunities like ice skating and skiing among other traditional physical education pursuits.
Experiential Learning

At MIS, learning expands beyond the classroom to help young people connect their learning with the world around them and take action in their community. Experiential learning at MIS includes everything from speakers to field trips (around Montana and to Costa Rica for 8th graders), extended day trips, workshops and downhill skiing days!