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Collaboration is essential in Middle School. Multi-age classrooms for 6th and 7th grade creates a place for built-in mentorship and leadership, with all students collaborating on student-led projects, using common language and incorporating the practice of debriefing after each experience.
By the time students reach the 8th grade, they have learned how to lead, organize, and serve others, on campus and out in the community. The 8th Grade class is responsible for hosting the annual Legacy carnival for younger classes and giving back the proceeds to fund the Fall Retreat for rising 8th graders.
With small class-sizes that utilize the “House System,” students develop social and emotional bonds in a safe, inclusive space as they mature through the challenges of their adolescent years. Counselors are embedded into the classrooms, allowing for trust and intuitive relationships to grow organically. Counselors serve as the liaison between students, teachers, and families and are an everyday part of Middle School life.
Core-subjects such as English, Math, Social Studies, and Science are tied together in context with how they relate to each other and can be utilized in everyday life. For example, the relevancy of math can be incorporated into the data collection of a science project. Visually documenting student learning throughout the Middle School validates and connects the body of work students produce throughout the school year.
One core element of Middle School that is led by student interests is the operation of the school’s recycling program, community gardens, native Bee habitats, and monarch butterfly conservation. Riverfield is a certified Green School and the 120 acres of barnyard, woods, creeks, and trails are always accessible during “Brain Breaks” throughout the day – giving space to learn, take a break in nature, and come back recharged and ready to engage.
Aligned with Riverfield’s Reggio-inspired learning approach, students are treated as the capable and confident humans that they are. Books selected for the Middle School Library and Book Club are curated through a lens of diversity and inclusion, allowing students to see themselves in stories and help to build empathy by learning about the lives of others. Riverfield accepts, values, and honors the individual as part of the collective of the community and teaches how to respectively share and make space for all viewpoints.
The Middle School provides challenge and support to all students so they are ready to meet the demands of the Upper School and are prepared for an ever-changing world. RCDS is the only secular, independent middle school in the Tulsa area and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS).
Dee Maxey, Middle School Division Head
The Middle School is fortunate to have a professional, dedicated faculty who model lifelong learning through ongoing, intentional professional development to make sure we are constantly evolving to meet our student’s needs in this changing world. Community is at the heart of everything we do, and we work diligently to foster connections between students, faculty, and staff, with our multi-aged House system as a strong foundation. Pre-adolescence is a time of remarkable development across all domains -- cognitively, physically, socially, emotionally, and morally -- and Riverfield’s Middle School team is committed to supporting and validating students, and their families, as they navigate these years. If you'd like to visit the Middle School and see if it's the right fit for your family, contact us.
