Middle School

Welcome to the middle school portion of the site. This is designed to be a tool to help you understand the learning your child is focusing on as well as ways you can support your child at home. Below you will see our beliefs regarding the goals of instruction and learning. To learn more specifics for each grade you can dig deeper. Each grade level contains an overview page that describes big learning for that grade level. There is also a linked page for each content area that provides links to documents with specific vocabulary and activities, links to interactive resources and additional materials to support learning.

The Shelby County Public School System’s mathematics program is built upon the SCPS Mathematics Curriculum. The curriculum design is based on research of best practice and an understanding of the developmental progression of mathematical concepts and skills. This progression of the standards in the curriculum design are to build a solid foundation in whole numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, and decimals in grades kindergarten through grade 8. Through the development of these foundations, students will be ready to enter math in the high school courses with a depth of understanding and ability to apply mathematics in more complex ways.

Shelby County’s mathematics programs require students to think and reason mathematically. Students practice applying mathematical ways of thinking to real world issues and challenges. In our mathematics classrooms students have daily opportunities to develop how to think and reason mathematically. The regularly use and apply the following mathematics practices:

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with Mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

ADD LINK HERE TO RESOURCE THAT EXPLAINS IN MORE PARENT FRIENDLY LANGUAGE

In SCPS the goals of the English Language Arts Program is to:

• Provide students with a solid foundation in the five areas reading: phonemic awareness, phonics/word study, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension
• Produce writers who can effectively communicate their knowledge and thinking through writing for a variety of purposes and for a variety of audiences.
• Provide a language arts curriculum with rich opportunities and a variety of assessments to reflect mastery learning aligned to Kentucky Standards
• Provide opportunities for students to increase their ability to read and write across content areas by using a wide range of strategies.

The Language Arts Program is designed to provide every student in grades PreK-12 with opportunities to become successful communicators, to read comprehensively, write effectively, speak meaningfully, and listen critically.

Every student in SCPS should meet or exceed the standards for our reading and writing curriculum. As teachers work toward this goal, they engage students in conversations that are grounded in a variety of texts that students read, listen to, or write. In our programs teachers work to provide multiple opportunities for students to read independently and in instructional settings. Shelby County believes that integrating language arts instruction with other content areas provides opportunities for students to practice and extend their skills throughout the school day.