Pearson and AMLE, formerly National Middle School Association working together for adolescents

The seventh grade team at Moravia Middle School believes in educating the whole child, not only for the success of the student, but for the success of the entire school. Their philosophy is that they can reach all students. Their program is designed to meet not only academic needs, but social and emotional needs of students. The seventh grade team has created team exercises such as the ropes course for establishing positive behaviors and teambuilding, interdisciplinary learning with choices for students to customize their learning, and a teacher advocate for every student assuring that every student has at least one positive interaction with an adult every day. They believe that the most important result of implementing this team is having well-rounded, thoughtful, intelligent, curious, and compassionate leaders of tomorrow.

Their advice to schools wishing to try this program? Establish your core values, start small, and build layers into the program every year. By starting with identifying interdisciplinary connections then adding a flexible schedule that allowed for teaming, the team was able to gradually add more programs to benefit students.