Middle
School commences at the Year 7 level to acknowledge the
emergence of adolescent maturation in body, mind and spirit
of our students.
 Accordingly
with continued and responsive pastoral care, our Middle
School social and academic programmes for the Year levels
7-9 cater for 'change and transition'.
We
recognise that in adolescence there can be significant
differences in the rate of maturation
between girls and boys
as well as within gender groupings.
GSG
therefore offers both co-ed and single gender learning
environments to minimise
competition, and maximise opportunities for specific
skills development.
In
Year 7, as in traditional primary schools, most of the
time is spent with one teacher, allowing the
development
of quality relationships between teacher and students.
 This
is a transitional year to Middle School where the students
enjoy socialising and being in the same physical space
as the older teenagers, yet continue to have their own
teacher as they had for their primary years.
Our
aim is to gender split classes as best we can duirng
core subject areas in Years 8 and 9. This caters
for the well recognised differences in needs and learning
styles of boys and girls at this stage.
Students
and teachers alike recognise the enormous academic and
social benefits, with students showing higher levels
of motivation and attention, more effective learning,
and greater self-confidence in general class participation.
In
these years each class also has a home room teacher who
takes responsibility for his or her
students' academic and
social well being.
 Strong
bonds are formed between these home room classes and
their teachers. Our staff 'team teach' these students
for the majority of the time.
This
means that, while all students study the same curriculum,
the team teachers
deliver specific learning programmes to each class.
Specialist
teachers provide such programmes as Art, Drama, Music,
Physical Health Education, T & E and Computing.
Our
specialist programme will expand with the growth in student
numbers.
Class
sizes in all year groups allow individual
knowledge of and attention to student needs.
Both
socially and academically the early adolescent years are
an exciting and challenging time.
At
GSG we are committed to meeting their needs as they go
'through the hoops' of
growing up. |
