Welcome

Welcome to Prospect Hill Academy’s Middle School. As a community, we work together to make sure that our school is a wonderful place for students to grow, learn, and to explore the world around them. Our Middle School serves approximately 290 students in grades five through eight. They are talented and energetic individuals from very diverse backgrounds, each brining a wealth of knowledge and traditions to our school. Embracing and celebrating the identities of our community members is a cornerstone of our school’s culture and we incorporate this learning into our classes, projects, conversations, community meetings, and informal social time. As our students enter adolescence and begin to ask exciting questions about themselves, their world, and their role in the world, we invite them to share these questions in a safe, supportive, and caring environment. As we seek to prepare students well for college, foster responsible citizenship, and inspire a life long love of learning, we see the energetic and inquisitive nature of adolescence as a perfect match for exploring the world.

I encourage you to preview our academic program by taking a look at the description of each subject. As a community of educators, we have worked to design interesting courses with provocative themes and overarching questions that will engage our students. Our belief is that learning should be active, interesting, cooperative, and challenging, and our dedicated faculty of teachers works very hard to design lessons, projects, and activities that allow students to discover the world or ignite new passions and interests. Project based and cooperative learning play important roles in our classes and it’s always a pleasure to watch the energy for learning that tackling a debate, co-writing a play, or working with classmates to solve a tricky Math problem unleashes. As our school’s principal, one of my favorite moments of the day is always when I step into a classroom and see groups of students enthusiastically absorbed in a project- discussing, debating, building, or creating something new and original with their energy. Witnessing team work and collaboration that leads to stronger thinking and hopefully, fresh and original ideas is a sign that students are learning and succeeding.

At the Middle School, we also value responsible citizenship and believe that it is every person’s responsibility to improve his or her world in some way. In addition to being kind, respectful, and caring toward others, we expect students to see themselves as leaders and to think about how their actions and ideas can improve the world around them. This may be in an everyday way such as helping a classmate clean up a spill or it might be by starting a campaign to educate the community about a specific global issue. We ask students to think about what needs work in their immediate, local, and global communities and then to see themselves as agents of change who will lead those charges. Our school culture is built on the premise that our students were talented and inspiring individuals when we first met them and that our task is to create a positive, safe, nurturing, and energizing environment where they will take risks, lead, question, and soar.

Thank you for visiting our website and learning more about our school.

Sincerely,
Liz Murray
Middle School Director