Jr. High (7th-8th)
The Montessori Middle School strives to be developmentally responsive, holistic and empowering for all of our students. In order for adolescents to thrive, the learning environment must be responsive to and respectful of the developmental stages the child is experiencing.
Turtle River Montessori’s learning environments consider the whole child, providing for intellectual development as well as physical, spiritual and psychosocial development. At the same time, we strive to provide a community in which early adolescents can learn to develop personal power in an appropriate way, and learn to use that power to benefit themselves and others. This is a time of rapid change and growth, with significant turning points in the adolescent’s life, including puberty. There is also dramatic cognitive growth, and the development of new abstract and complex ways of thinking. Students at this age engage in exploratory behavior as the adolescent seeks to learn about him or herself, others and where they fit into the world.
Our Junior High School program is taught by Masters level teachers. Turtle River Montessori’s Middle School structure consists of multi-age groupings (7th and 8th grades), with a developmentally responsive curriculum that exceeds Florida standards.
Our goal is to provide an academically challenging learning environment that integrates all aspects of a developmentally responsive, research-based global curriculum through relevant, creative and experiential instruction, while accommodating and celebrating all styles of learning.
Through critical inquiry and service learning, our mission is to foster an understanding of self, global awareness, a sense of social commitment and responsibility, and an enduring passion for learning. We seek to empower our students to become critical thinkers, engaged citizens, ambassadors of peace and advocates for human rights and social justice.
The curriculum is designed as a two year program. The language, speech, foreign language, physical education, service learning, fine arts, music, media and geography are courses of continuous progress. The science, ELA, geography, social studies, and math are designated by topics of study complete in each course. During the year, the students participate in “field studies,” where they apply what they learn in STEM, Spanish, and Community Service. Places like River Bend Park, Jupiter Beaches, El Sol, etc., provide wonderful opportunities to bring down the walls of the classroom and allow our students to learn in real world applications.
As students’ work continues to become more abstract, each year there are cycles of work designed to help students learn organizational, decision-making and time-management skills. The use of scoring for assignments, participation, quizzes and final projects (demonstrations of understanding) is incorporated with online grade books to allow parents to monitor their child’s progress at any time.