Middle School: Grades 6-8
Depth, rigor, and high school readiness. These are the years when the curriculum asks more, on purpose, and students discover they can answer.
Middle School journey, grade by grade
The last years here are the ones our alumni name most: the capstone work, the class play leads, the trip, the Commencement stage. The curriculum is built to crest in eighth grade, and students who stay for the crest arrive at high school not just ready, but eager.
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Grade 6
Rome, the medieval world, and the birth of modern science. Students run their own experiments and take up business math and economics.
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Grade 7
The age of exploration and the Renaissance, with creative writing, geometry and pre-algebra, and the study of human physiology.
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Grade 8
A culminating year of revolutions and the making of the modern world, with lab reports, current events, and the move toward thinking for oneself, before students step on to high school. The year closes with the week-long capstone trip to Puerto Rico and Commencement.
Rigorous math and science, made real
Make no mistake: the math and science here are rigorous, and taught in ways that connect to the real world. WSA students graduate eighth grade having completed the same core math and science Georgia expects of every student, including Algebra I. Students run their own experiments, write full lab reports and research papers, and take up business math and economics along the way. They leave as critical thinkers and problem-solvers, prepared for any field they choose.
Technology, at the right moment
For forty years, we have kept screens out of the grade-school day, so childhood stays hands-on, social, and real. Then, in eighth grade, students meet technology the way they meet everything else here: hands-on, and built from the ground up. Working on simple Raspberry Pi computers, they learn how the machines of their world actually work, right before they need them for high school.
Ready for high school, and beyond
Eighth grade at WSA is not an ending that arrives by default. It is a launch, prepared deliberately. By graduation, students have worked through Algebra I, written and defended research, run their own experiments, performed on stage every year since first grade, and done it all as readers, makers, and musicians. High schools notice. Our graduates arrive with something admissions offices consistently remark on: they know how to work, they know how to speak, and they know who they are.
Where our graduates go
WSA graduates leave ready for the high school of their choice. Recent graduates have gone on to Academe of the Oaks, Paideia, Woodward, DeKalb School of the Arts, and Decatur High School, and in time to more than 80 colleges and universities.
Contact our Enrollment Director, Stacey Alston at enrollment@waldorfatlanta.org for more information about the Middle School Program at The Waldorf School of Atlanta.