List of 7 items.

• Advisory Program

  Faculty advisors establish a working relationship with student advisees, providing each student with an adult advocate. The advisor is the primary link between home and school, with regular communication to parents/guardians, including comments in interim and semester reports concerning the growth and progress of the student. The advisor is also responsible for knowing the “big picture” about their advisees’ academic and personal development, consulting with other teachers as needed, and tracking approaches that are more or less helpful in encouraging student success.

• Athletics

  The middle school physical education program is designed around the team sport concept. Sixth grade students have an opportunity to learn about the individual and team sports offered in our MS athletic program. Preparation for their sport choices begins in P.E. classes. A range of skills, concepts, and activities are presented which allow each student to gain an interest in and to develop the foundation skills for sports of his or her choice. Drills and small-numbered, lead-up games allow students to develop a cognitive understanding of each sport, helping them learn to transfer their newly acquired skills into more competitive scrimmage situations. Effort, social interaction, conceptual knowledge, skill development, and initiative toward self-improvement are emphasized.

  
  

  The girls’ and boys’ seventh and eighth grade athletic program is the start of interscholastic competition at Friends. The program offers a wide variety of team and individual sports to give each student a broad, in-depth, and meaningful athletic experience appropriate to the athlete’s level of ability.
  
  Click here to learn about Athletics at Friends. 

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• Activities

  Sponsored by middle school faculty, the Middle School Activities Program is an opportunity for students to participate in fun and differently paced experiences during the academic cycle. Students sign up for an activity twice in the school year. Activities meet every other week for 45 minutes. Some activities include dice baseball, cricket, Origami, dramatic improvisation, low impact camping, surfing the Internet, Latin American dancing, mind teasers, indoor soccer, chess, kickball, S.P.O.R.T.S. talk, cake and cookie decorating, and international cooking.

• Service Learning

  The Middle School Service Learning Program is an important aspect of our students’ growth and maturation, and it is integrally linked to curriculum covered in both academic courses and advisory. Students in all three grades engage in service learning projects throughout the course of the school year. Service learning reinforces the idea, importance, and practice of reaching out and caring for others, an aspect of education and citizenship that is nurtured in the lower school at Friends and that continues through the upper school’s service requirement. Our hope is that students will gain a broader understanding of their individual roles in society by helping to improve the quality of life of others in their local and/or global community.
  
  Finally, the Service Learning Program is based on the Quaker ideals of environmental stewardship and community responsibility and the belief among educators that service experiences provide adolescents with an outward focus that can facilitate a personal and group sense of pride and accomplishment, as well as support educational goals.

• Technology Program

  Wilmington Friends has a one-to-one laptop program for students in grades 5-12. Students use their school-issued laptops both at school and at home for computer-based work in all disciplines. The goal of the program is not simply to expand the use of digital-age tools, but to make the most of the opportunities presented by technology in service of our educational and philosophical mission. The potential of technology for collaboration across all kinds of boundaries aligns with the Quaker belief in collective wisdom and the commitment of Quaker schools to prepare and inspire students “to make a better world.” It also aligns with research demonstrating that technology as a thoughtfully applied tool within a quality curriculum deepens student engagement, supporting both independent learning (including differentiated instruction) and collaborative problem solving.
  

   

   

• Committees & Clubs

  In our middle school, students are directly involved in community decision making. Students organize and run committees that seek to improve the quality of middle school life. Faculty members sponsor each committee, but they are not decision makers; they are simply guiding members. Individual students are selected by the Quaker process of consensus for leadership roles and then attend leadership workshops to develop facilitation and group-management skills. All committee plans and decisions are arrived at through consensus as well. While this process is often not a quick means to decisions, it values and, indeed, requires all voices.
  
  Middle school students are invited to propose and organize clubs based upon shared interests. Clubs require a faculty sponsor and typically meet during middle school lunch. Examples include Drama Club and One Direction Club, among many others.

• WEB Middle School Orientation Program

  WEB stands for “Where Everybody Belongs” and is a nationwide program whose purpose is to help sixth graders feel more comfortable as well as help them achieve success in their first year of middle school. The WEB sixth grade orientation and transition program is designed to both welcome and support sixth graders by assigning them an 8th grade WEB Leader as a mentor during this first year. This WEB Leader is a responsible older student who was selected from a large pool of applicants and has met the qualifications of being a good role model and a positive leader on our campus.