The Middle School years are exciting – and challenging. It’s a brave new world for adolescents, and Westtown offers a series of special programs that help them navigate self-image, peer group, and friendship issues.

We believe well-rounded education includes more than excellent academics. Values can be learned, too, and young people need a safe environment where they can practice them. Building on their own innate enthusiasm and keen sense of justice, we help them acquire the skills they need to become ethical young adults. Here are some of the ways:

Student Clerks

In Quakerism, a leader is known as a “clerk.” At Westtown, leadership isn’t a popularity contest; student clerks are discerned within the Middle School community. All students who want to develop their leadership skills are welcome to join the Student Clerks and help shape Middle School activities – from service and fundraising events to writing queries and greeting for our weekly Meeting for Worship.

We believe there are many kinds of leadership that will benefit our world, and so we consciously nurture both the charismatic extroverted leader and the quiet consensus builder.

Middle School Lunch

Remember what lunch was like when you were in middle school? For some adults, it was a painful experience: Who do I sit with? What if they won’t let me sit there? What if they laugh at me? And now imagine middle school students dining in a formal setting with N.C. Wyeth’s magical painting, The Giant, as a backdrop. Tables seat an assigned mix of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, plus a faculty member. Crews of students serve the food, take care of cleanup and reset the tables afterward.

Conversations are polite – and sometimes scintillating. Food is served family style, with a salad bar and vegetarian selections as options, and as part of the Farm to School movement, much of Westtown’s food comes from local providers. In this setting, meals nourish the spirit as well as the body.

Visitors are frequently amazed that lunchtime for middle schoolers can be this civilized. And parents often cite the lunch program with its informal interactions between students and teachers as one of the things they value most about Westtown.

And the inclusiveness, acceptance, and sense of community so evident in the dining room are also present throughout the Middle School. No one is left out, and students are always encouraged to share their opinions.

Homeroom and Advisory

Middle School students gather in intentional groups to build community and provide student support.

Homeroom: Students meet in homeroom groups of 14-18 students to engage in building community through play. Using the Developmental Designs curriculum, students greet each other, engage in a group share, and play a game together. This helps create a strong foundation for positive social interactions and group discussions.

Advisory: Students meet in groups of 7-9 students with their advisor weekly. In the advisory program students get to know each other more deeply, check in on school life, and meet with their advisors individually. Advisors provide both academic and social/emotional support for students and serve as the liaison between the school and students’ families. Advisors are in regular communication with families and hold conferences each fall. In the spring, advisors guide their advisees through student-led conferences.

Work Program

Middle School students serve tables, clean up, and clean up spaces in the Middle School as part of the school’s organized Work Program, in which every child rotates through jobs such as serve, set, wash, and janitorial. Work Program began out of necessity during WWII when labor was scarce, but it quickly became an important part of a Westtown education. Work Program reaffirms the goodness of service to others and the dignity of all work, in accordance with Quaker values. It also offers middle schoolers opportunities for leadership: older students can become Work Captains, supervising a work rotation as they gain valuable skills in working with others.

Service Learning

In Middle School, service is a three-year program that’s woven into the curriculum and honors the emerging empathy of this age group, as well as their ability to connect to and organize their service work. Each grade engages in annual service learning such as:

6th Graders work to understand the role of service in their lives. They meet with local service organizations to learn about ways they can serve their community. They then collaborate on service projects on campus and take part in a service learning field trip.

7th Graders explore their individual interests and turn them into action. With the Think, Care, Act projects, student identify their strengths, affinities, interests, and talents. Then they focus on what they care about in the community and the world around them. In the third step, they connect the first two aspects to design service project that helps others by putting their passions and skills to good use. Finally, students present their projects to parents, teachers, and classmates at the annual Think, Care, Act Fair.

8th Graders work collaboratively on service rooted in care for their community and the world, with a focus on sustainability and stewardship. Students perform service as a class throughout the year, both on campus and through service learning trips.

Equity Justice and Belonging

Equity, Justice, and Belonging (EJB) programming is a vital component of our school’s culture and one of the many ways we fulfill our mission and Quaker values. EJB is embedded in our curriculum, teaching approaches, support of students, and engagement with families. Middle School students also have an opportunity to serve as EJB subcommittee members of student clerks throughout the school year. As members of the EJB subcommittee clerks, students lead announcements with cultural celebrations, and bring awareness of the most pressing social justice issues through presentations and podcasts.

Community Period

Through Community Period, we help students integrate skills that promote cultural responsiveness and social/emotional learning (SEL). Our students’ social and emotional growth ensures they have more access to academic success. An essential part of that progress, and building students’ SEL toolbox, is recognizing and honoring students’ identities, creating a safe space of belonging, and dismantling systems that affect our BIPOC and underrepresented students whether their difference exists in religion, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ability. Community Periods provide an opportunity for students to gain proficiency around these themes and empower them to be upstanders and advocates.

Community Building

Recess at Westtown doesn’t end in Lower School; it’s an important break for Middle School students as well. In fact, because movement and play are so important, Middle Schoolers enjoy two recesses a day. They enjoy a freshly-baked snack and break into groups for bench ball (a game invented by students), four square, a quick round of soccer or hoops, a song accompanied by ukulele, or simply a talk together.

After School

The after-school Moose Tracks program affords kids time to do homework and play. It’s “one hour of fun, one hour of work.” Learn more here.

Middle Moose

Every Middle Schooler is a member of a Spirit Team—the Foxes, the Giants, and the Lakers—who compete every month in fun activities as they strive to win the Middle Moose Trophy. Middle Moose is a lot of fun, provides opportunities for camaraderie and leadership, and builds community across the grades. Students are on the same team each year. Siblings are assigned to the same team, too!