Frequently Asked Questions: This page contains answers to common questions of students and parents.
- What are the essential Needs/Requirements for healthy Adolescent Development?
- How Does Villa's Middle School program meet these needs?
- Essential Components of a Montessori Middle School
- What is the best way to contact a teacher?
What are the essential Needs/Requirements for healthy Adolescent Development?
*Find a valued place in a constructive group.
*Learn how to form close durable human relationships.
*Feel a sense of worth as a person.
*Cultivate inquiring and problem solving habits of mind for lifelong learning
*Express constructive curiosoty and exploratory behavior.
*Find ways of being useful to others.
*Master social skill including the abilityto manage conflict peacefully.
*Become ethical persons.
*Respect diversity in our plurlistic society.
*Believe in a promising future with real opportunitie
How Does Villa's Middle School program meet these needs?
Along with a dynamic and challenging core middle school curriculm desinged
to meet all State Standards, we accomplish the following:
*We create a small, safe, stable, enliving learning community. Each middle
school campus has only 48 students, which break into 3 groups of sixteen.
Each group is lead by a trained Montessorri middle school teacher.
*We emphasize support of the whole person. We seek to meet the physical,
social, emotional,cognative and spiritual need of each student.
*The school year begins with a goal setting conference with the student,
parent, and teacher, followed by a four day team building course held in
Prescott, Arizona.
*Every six weeks students and teachers live together out on "The Land,"
where students develop thericreative problem solving and team building
skills by participating in eco challenges and art activities.
Essential Components of a Montessori Middle School
*Emphasis on development and support of the whole child, which includes
social, emotional, physical, cognative and spiritual growth, in balance with
academic achievment.
*Stable, small, supportive, real community provides physically and
emotionally safe environment where respect and responsibility are modeled
and reinforced.
*Multi-age grouping. Peer and cross age tutoring.
*large blocks of uninterrupted, in-dept learning time.
*Clear expectations, time frames, and consequences.
*Student-Parent-Teacher goal setting and review at student lead conferences
three times per year.
*Focus on teaching personal learning styles, communication skills and
organizational stratagies, along with academic areas.
*Studies in human developments, especially adolescent development.
*Interdisciplinary learning themes based on the adolescent's "Big Questions."
*Frequent involments in school and community service projects.
*Week lond internships and student led classroom business.
*Outdoor Educational Curriculm including a week long community building
ROPES course using low ropes activities, Land Labs and Adventure Trip.
*Individualized adaptations of curriculm as needed.
*Non-competitive physical fitness and education programs.
*Student-Parent-Teacher community partnerships-incorporating the "It Takes a
Village" concept.
*Specifically terained staff to work with early adolescents who believe int
he potential of this age groups and want to be with them.
What is the best way to contact a teacher?
A quick email is the best way to contact a teacher for information about a
class or a student's progress. If it is an emergency please contact the
office at 602-954-9891.
