Middle School

Middle School

Hampshire Regional High School is a six-year regional high school which enrolls over eight hundred students and serves the towns of Chesterfield, Goshen, Southampton, Westhampton, and Williamsburg. "The Regional" seems large and formidable to incoming seventh grade students. To ease the transition from small school to big school, our middle school program was originally designed for seventh graders in 1988 to help them establish a sense of belonging at Hampshire Regional. Now the middle school includes eighth grade students as well who are taught by four interdisciplinary teaching teams. Some of the goals of the middle school include fostering self-esteem, encouraging good study habits, enhancing a sense of community spirit, supporting positive values, and enriching academic learning.

Students in the Hampshire Regional Middle School will be taught by caring, experienced teachers who have been trained to teach at the middle school level. The teachers will use a variety of teaching methods in an effort to motivate and encourage their students to work hard and to feel a sense of pride in their work.

Seventh and eighth grade students have most of their classes on the newly renovated third floor. All middle school students will be randomly assigned to a large group of students called a "team" which share a common group of "team teachers" for the core academic subjects. Teaming is a way of organizing teachers and students into small communities for teaching and learning. Team teachers share a daily meeting period to prepare for the teaching of their students. Teachers use this meeting to coordinate curriculum, classroom policies, team activities, and to meet with the guidance counselor, adjustment counselor, and parents.

Seventh and eighth grade students will be taught in heterogeneous classes and will not be grouped by ability, except in math in grade 8.

Students in the seventh and eighth grades must take five core subjects pending budget restrictions. Seventh graders take Language Arts, World Experience I, Science, Math, and possibly a Foreign Language. They are also required to take three exploratory "quarter" courses. Eighth grade students are required to take Language Arts, World Experience II, Math, Science, possibly Spanish or French, and at least three quarter courses. Most students are required to take Physical Education.

Hampshire Regional Middle School teachers recognize that middle level children have varying needs, ability levels, and skills when they enter H.R.H.S. Teachers will strive to provide them with a safe, challenging, and pleasant learning environment.