Middle
School

FPO

At Nueva, the middle school years are an exciting time, when students in grades 5–8 find their voice and discover how they can impact the world. This is a gangly, growing, gleeful time. This is a period of their lives characterized by enormous expansion of their view of themselves and their place in the world.

Signature Elements of the Middle School

Projects are explored through open-ended, essential questions:

  • How might the world sustainably feed itself by 2050?

  • What are the ways we come to understand the world? What constitutes evidence?

  • How do we determine objectivity and subjectivity?

  • What is justice and how does a community uphold it?

Nueva isn’t just a school—it is a place of growth. During middle school, I was pushed outside my academic comfort zone more times than I can count. I made friends who supported me through thick and thin, and I also became a better friend myself. I traveled to places that challenged me to redefine my worldview and also helped me discover my own place in our community. I know the curiosity and spirit I gained here will follow me through everything I do in the future. 

– Alex S., Nueva Alumna

 

The Nueva Way at the Middle School

The Nueva Way—Nueva’s constructivist, project-based approach — engages Middle School students with authentic, real-world, and interesting problems to solve. Teachers collaborate extensively across subject areas to deliver rigorous intellectual challenges that students crave. As the semester unfolds, Nueva faculty are always adding or amending lines of inquiry or projects in response to students’ interests, passions, and needs.

Concepts deliberately span traditional academic disciplines, offering students opportunities to make connections. Students have flexibility to shape their hands-on projects and choose how they will demonstrate their learning. Instead of final exams, students participate in culminating events throughout the year where they share their knowledge and expertise with the Nueva community.

 


Supporting Students’ Transition from Childhood to Adolescence

Middle School students thrive in community. We believe it is essential for them to feel connected to and valued by their peers and adults, and to practice kindness and care for others. Within this support network, they can enjoy the freedom to follow their passions and try new things.

A rich advisory program serves as the backbone of the Middle School community structure. It is uniquely suited to adolescents and allows them time to develop their identities in small groups with an advisor who serves as advocate and mentor. During the year, advisories spend time together each week building friendships, working through challenges, and sharing experiences such as camping trips and Community Service Learning projects. In addition, time is set aside for entire grades to gather, learn together, and build community.

Middle School is an especially important time for students to participate in the social-emotional learning program, as they navigate the transition between childhood and adolescence. To meet students’ need for increased independence as well as to grow their increased capacities for metacognition and self-direction, Middle School SEL provides a balance of structure and exploration. Using caring and support, SEL specialists and Middle School faculty encourage students to step outside their comfort zones to stretch their academic and SEL skills and to reflect on themselves and their actions as they mature.

 

 

design thinking

Design Thinking, Engineering, and Computer Science

Nueva Middle School students take Design Thinking, Engineering, and Computer Science each year. In this year-long class, held in the Hillsborough campus I-Lab, students practice all the elements of Design Thinking by completing projects — tackling problems and transforming their ideas into solutions. At each step, students are challenged to improve their skills with new engineering concepts, tools, or components, and to further refine their design process as they build.

Students are also exposed to increasingly complex programming languages, development environments, and digital resources. With continued practice and problem-solving, students become facile at integrating their computer, engineering, and Design Thinking skills. In many cases, projects integrate concepts from other classes, reinforcing the use of design, engineering, and programming as tools for interdisciplinary work.

Eighth-grade students further explore their passions utilizing the Design Thinking process while working on their Recital Project, their six-month deep dive into a topic or passion of their choosing.

 

Global Citizenship

Global Citizenship is a core pillar at Nueva — we want all Nueva students to positively and profoundly impact the world. In and out of the classroom, we foster good citizenship, service, and community building. Students use Design Thinking and draw upon their SEL skills in their role as community stewards.

In Middle School, they discover how different disciplines come together in life. Here, vital to developing their view of themselves as being part of the larger world, is the integration of humanities, world languages, trips, and community service learning days. From studying the Silk Road and globalization to defining their own cultural identity, they begin to expand their comfort zones as they address real-world, compelling issues.

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The Great Wall of China

 

Through inquiry and authentic research projects that span multiple disciplines, Middle School students develop a keen understanding of exactly how connected the world has become.

In advisory, in grade-level meetings, and across disciplines in their classrooms, students will prepare for their culminating trips. They practice teamwork and conflict resolution skills in SEL, and they explore historical topics in humanities, writing, and art.

We believe there is much students can learn and gain from traveling outside school. Area field trips to parks, museums, and universities throughout the year provide students with rich hands-on learning experiences. In the spring, their experiential learning culminates in trips to various destinations, as they participate in deep-dive investigations on the ground.

 

Cynthia Kosut

Humanities Teacher

“We challenge our students with complex interdisciplinary experiences. They come to understand that reading, writing, literature, and music are infused in science, math, and language so that in their adult lives, they bring forth all their resources to solve problems. We want them to see the world, and their place in it, as an interconnected whole. They are not just taking a trip or practicing a language — during the year, we are setting the stage for them to notice and fully grasp why there are differences, customs, practices, behaviors. They see academic disciplines come together vividly on their travels and they're ready for it.”

One-to-One Laptop Program

Every Nueva student in sixth grade and older will receive a laptop during each school year. Use of laptops will not be new to these students; technology is integrated into the curriculum by teachers in all grades in age-appropriate ways to support inquiry, creation, collaboration, and in-depth learning. Launched in 2007, the One-to-One Laptop program provides access to powerful computing and creative tools.

While our technology platform provides great opportunities, Nueva’s social-emotional learning faculty use this environment to educate students to become knowledgeable and discerning digital citizens. The SEL team developed a multiyear approach to educating students regarding online behavior to help them establish both a code of ethics and sense of self-control.

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Drama Conservatory

Each year, seventh graders experience the Drama Conservatory, a treasured part of the Nueva Middle School experience. Beginning in February, students study twice a week with professional directors and actors from around the Bay Area. After rigorous work honing thespian skills ranging from character study to stage combat, students divide up and dive into various productions including improvisation, Shakespeare, or contemporary and classic works. After performing for the Nueva community, the grade travels together to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where they experience professional performances of shows they just completed.

Middle School Stories

Dispatch from the Field: Reflections from 8th Grade Homestays
Dispatch from the Field: Reflections from 8th Grade Homestays

This year marked the return of a milestone Nueva Middle School experience: the eighth-grade trips around the world included language-based homestays.

Our Japanese, Spanish, and Mandarin students each spent a week living with a host student and their family, practicing their conversation skills and taking in daily life as a teenager in a different country and culture.

Read about their experiences and see photos from their daytime activities with their classmates.

Dispatch from the Field: Reflections from Middle School Trips
Dispatch from the Field: Reflections from Middle School Trips

It’s May, which means it’s trips season at Nueva! School trips at Nueva, from nearby California wilderness to countries around the world, offer some of the most memorable immersive and inspiring learning experiences for our students.

This week, the Middle School students have set off to Monterey (5th grade), Washington, D.C. (6th grade), Los Angeles (7th grade) domestically, and Spain, Japan, and Singapore (8th grade) internationally. Read these travel dispatches from a few fifth, sixth, and seventh graders, and keep an eye out for next week’s dispatch, where eighth graders will share a little bit of their homestay experiences.

Fifth Graders Discover the Wonders of the Bay Area
Fifth Graders Discover the Wonders of the Bay Area

Now in its third year, the Bay Area Wonders project, created by science teacher Cristina Veresan and former writing teacher Cliff Burke, is a published student-created anthology of nature essays, accompanied by illustrations. The project exemplifies interdisciplinary learning: students explore their selected species in their science, writing, and art clases. 

Illustrated Graph Project Merges Science and Art to Raise Awareness
Illustrated Graph Project Merges Science and Art to Raise Awareness

A multidisciplinary 5th grade lesson is teaching students to interpret and communicate climate change data through art.

“The Illustrated Graph project encourages student wonder,” Teacher Cristina Veresan said. “It’s a beautiful example of making art in the service of science communication. 

Starting from Scratch: Nueva Computer Science Program Builds Confidence and Creativity
Starting from Scratch: Nueva Computer Science Program Builds Confidence and Creativity

From fourth grade through eighth grade, every student takes classes in the Hillsborough campus I-Lab, where they practice hands-on prototyping, use tools and machinery, and learn coding and computer science—all within the framework of design thinking.

“Our guiding principle,” said I-Lab Director Angi Chau, “is that the core computer science curriculum is meant to be accessible to everybody, whether or not they have done a lot of coding before.” 

Catching Up with . . . Emily Goldberg
Catching Up with . . . Emily Goldberg

Emily Goldberg began at Nueva in March, joining our community as the middle school counselor. We chatted with Emily about her hopes and goals in her new role, her path to Nueva, and what she loves about working with middle school students.