MIDDLE SCHOOL
Bruchim ha’baim—welcome to the Alan B. Slifka Middle School! Our Middle School program is designed around the unique developmental stage of early adolescence. In both general studies and limudei qodesh (Judaic Studies) students explore sophisticated concepts and practice abstract reasoning skills—exploring challenging texts, writing analytical essays, and participating in scientific and mathematical inquiry.
Our Middle School Program is rich in the arts. Students create beautiful artwork that captures the expressiveness that is a hallmark of their age, perform on- and off- stage, and learn to play musical instruments as an ensemble. In this warm and caring community, we observe Jewish and Israeli holidays together with celebrations led by the students.
This website captures some of what makes The Alan B. Slifka Middle School experience enriching and educational. I invite you to visit us and to explore our school. You will certainly notice the dedication of our teachers, but most of all, you will be captivated by the positive spirit and inquisitiveness of our wonderful students!
Lori Skopp,
Alan B. Slifka Middle School Head
CURRICULUM
The Alan B. Slifka Middle School helps children make the transition from elementary to high school and from pre-adolescence to adolescence. Middle School students build upon strong basic skills to achieve higher levels of analysis and understanding. In every subject, teachers strive to engage and challenge students intellectually.
Academically, middle school students use these years to master the basic skills that give them a solid foundation in all of the major school disciplines. While we provide careful grounding in the skills of acquiring information, we also require students to use higher-level processes to select, research, analyze and interpret topics presented in the classroom. We emphasize the importance of intellectual curiosity and exploration, and encourage our middle school students to express their own connections to learning in ways that challenge them.
The Heschel Middle School program stresses intellectual growth within a curriculum of Jewish, Western and world traditions, and the equally important social, emotional, moral, aesthetic, and spiritual dimensions of a student's development. The Heschel Middle School student body assumes responsibility for developing and maintaining several Hesed (community service) projects--including buddy programs with younger grades, presenting productions to the school and the larger community, leading the Middle School Tefillah services, as well as for performing other communal tasks. An electives program offers choices as diverse as visual arts, athletics, art, newspaper, and musical theater.
Bat/Bar Mitzvahs
A Bat/Bar Mitzvah is typically the biggest lifecycle event that takes place during a child’s school years. It is frequently an event that requires intense preparation, both in terms of ritual aspects (e.g., reading Torah and preparing a Dvar Torah or speech) and in terms of non-ritual aspects (e.g., celebrating in some way separate from services). Bat/Bar Mitzvah services and celebrations are a wonderful way to involve the community in this important milestone of a child’s life.
Over the course of three school years (grades 6-8) all of the children in any given cohort will reach the age of Bar/Bat Mitzvah. As a result, for the children and their families, this is not just a single event for the individual child, but a series of communal celebrations over the course of several middle school years. Indeed, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebrations often are a centerpiece of a Heschel Middle School student’s social life—providing a group experience on numerous weekends, especially during the seventh grade school year.
BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
Extra-Curricular Programming
Extra-curricular programs provide opportunities for students in athletics (soccer, ultimate frisbee, basketball, cross-country, track, and tennis), musical theater, theater tech, visual arts, yearbook, and music.
INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORTS
The Heschel Middle School fields seven interscholastic teams. These include coed soccer, girls volleyball and cross country running in the fall. In the winter, we offer boys and girls basketball. The school year finishes out with track and field, ultimate frisbee, tennis teams as well as other intramural club activities in the spring. Participation is made available to any interested students and no "cuts" are made. The program only requires each student to make a commitment of time and effort to participate in scheduled practices and games, to maintain the requisite standards of sportsmanship, and to maintain appropriate standing in academic classes. While coaches try to play everyone, it is not always possible. Playing time is at the discretion of the coaches. Fortunately, many students in the Middle School currently participate in the sports program and Lower School students look forward with excitement to wearing the Heschel colors.
Hesed Programming
Middle School students participate in up to three Hesed days each year. Students volunteer in food pantries, retirement/nursing homes, and local parks.
Middle School Israel Trip
The 8th grade trip to Israel helps students form concrete, personal, and meaningful connections to the land and state of Israel, while exploring Israel as a grade community. We experience Israel's natural environment from the challenges of the wilderness to the lushness of the north. We encounter our history as a people in Israel from biblical to contemporary times through all its rich and varied manifestations. And we interact with a modern and vibrant State of Israel full of diverse people who contribute to a complex society, celebrating her many awesome accomplishments and reflecting upon the significant challenges she faces.
