Middle School (7&8)

Programmatically, Learn Well, Live Well, Lead Well (LW3) is the framework for building Holton’s curriculum. It allows teachers to stretch the work they do with students beyond traditional academics and is rooted in the institutional priorities of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging; health and wellbeing; and global education.Holton’s middle school nurtures a love of lifelong learning, tenacity of purpose, intellectual curiosity and interdisciplinary thinking while ensuring that students build core skills across disciplines while establishing key study and organizational skills. 

The middle school curriculum places an emphasis on developing superlative writing skills. Students strengthen their analytical ability, reading comprehension and logical progression of ideas. 

Gifted and devoted middle school teachers create safe spaces for students to challenge themselves, explore new interests and reach beyond their comfort zones. 

A wide array of outstanding arts offerings allows students to perform and innovate while developing creative-thinking and problem-solving skills.

While establishing a strong grounding in core and specialized subjects, the middle school program embraces and honors the complexity of adolescence through an intentional and proactive approach to social and emotional wellness. 

Small advisory groups provide safe spaces for students to interact with a caring adult on a regular basis. Seminar, an integrated, interdisciplinary, spiraling school-wide curriculum, helps students build a solid and healthy sense of identity by developing skills of self-awareness and empathy–asking such questions as, “Who am I and how do I relate to others, both in my community and throughout the larger world?”

Our goal is for students to leave middle school as confident, creative problem-solvers who know how to iterate and are comfortable with failure—and who are able to do all this with a global mindset.

Throughout their middle school experience, students tackle critical issues such as gender, power, identity, bias and difference, both in their own lives and global contexts whether linking classroom learning to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or traveling with classmates to New Orleans or Belize. All the while, students are  nurturing personal integrity and  a sense of responsibility that will help them to make wise and ethical choices. 

This work seeks to ensure students can thrive in school and in life, growing into leaders who will make the world a better place.