The Middle School advisory program nurtures kindness, responsibility, respect, honesty, and adaptability across all our sixth through eighth grade students--our core values at Westerly. The goal of the middle school advisors is build strong personal connections with our students beyond the traditional classroom setting to help guide, provide perspective, balance, and build each student's independence, personal identity, and sense of belonging within an environment of empathy and trust.

Each Friday morning we meet in small groups to connect, share whats on our mind, play games, get organized, provide advice, organize projects, and more. 6th and 7th graders will be mixed in groups, while 8th grade groups remains with their class for their small groups. Each advisory group is different, as we aim to address the specific needs of each advisory group.

The advisors meet every 4-6 weeks to discuss our upcoming "themes" and share resources and activities to support our collective goals.

September & October we are focused on Community Building.

Advisory groups are posted on your Google Classroom.

Choice Workshops are Westerly's version of "elective" classes. For the first trimester in 7th Grade, we are offering a few of our popular workshops from years past, along with piloting an on-campus internship opportunity.

Workshops for the trimester are:

Horticulture: Pitch-in at the Rodenhizer Community Garden where we’ll plant, maintain and harvest an array of plants, vegetables, and flowers.

Crocheting: Students will learning the basics of crocheting, while others with a little more experience will have the opportunity to create their own coaster or move into a more difficult project like mug holders or key chains.

Wildcat News: These Wildcat reporters will serve as the voice of campus by way of video creation. Students will utilize the Wild Lab and its media tools to broadcast in a variety of ways - a wonderful introduction to podcasting and videography.

Internships: Westerly internships are available in the lower school classrooms and main office. Students with school internships will be assigned into different classrooms (or offices) on campus to support with classroom learning or administrative duties. It's a wonderful leadership opportunity for those interested in getting involved in supporting the culture of the campus.

We start each Tuesday-Thursday morning with a RULER time block. RULER, which stands for "Recognizing; Understanding; Labeling; Expressing; Regulating," is a systemic approach to SEL developed at the Center for Emotional Intelligence. RULER aims to infuse the principles of emotional intelligence across all partners within a school community, informing how leaders lead, teachers teach, students learn, and families support students. Utilizing and building upon core tools including: the Charter, Mood Meter, Meta-Moment, and Blueprint, the RULER period is designed as an important space and time to check in on the emotional climate of the class and take small steps towards building the 5 skills of emotional intelligence.

• Recognizing emotions in oneself and others

• Understanding the causes and consequences of emotions

• Labeling emotions with nuance vocabulary

• Expressing emotions in accordance with cultural norms and social context

• Regulating emotions with helpful strategies

Fun fact: We use the same tools as a faculty and staff to measure and manage our own emotional climate!

In Trimester 1, 7th Graders will be conducting a field study of our Westerly campus to identify environmental, geographical, or structural issues/problems to address. Working in teams, they will develop a solution and create a prototype or model to represent the problem and how they intend to solve it. Students will program pocket computers, design 3D models, and apply circuits to their creations. Students will have a culminating presentation of their prototypes.

Check out the Wildlab page for more information from Mr. Mardian.