Connection Time
Connection Time is an integral part of our program. All students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades have an individual supportive conference that meets once a week for 30 minutes with a team recommended Connection Teacher/Therapist.
Students are carefully paired with their connection teachers based on their individual learning needs and the teacher/therapist’s area of expertise. The Connection Teachers/Therapists include a Speech and Language Therapist and Social Worker.
Connection Time is an intensely individualized period that focuses on helping students; support and strengthen identified areas of need, develop a deeper awareness and appreciation of their learning style, manage assignments, identify and use strategies to help move towards independence, and acquire the skills and confidence to become effective and confident self-advocates, learners and individuals.
Alliance Club
The Alliance Club is a unique group learning experience that meets once a week for 45 minutes. Alliance Club offers students an opportunity to come together and work collaboratively on a community service project. Students in each grade are split up into small groups and identify an area that they are interested in focusing on in the community.
Alliance Club provides students with a unique opportunity to use their knowledge of their individual learning style (i.e., what they are exploring during Connection Time and Study Skills Group) and begin to independently apply learned strategies, approaches and personal insights within a supportive group context.
The goals of the club are to; build students’ group work skills, develop a sense of team building among peers, learn to manage long-term projects, foster a sense of connection and responsibility to one’s community and help students begin to develop affinities. Alliance Club offers students an arena in which they can explore and begin to identify areas of specific interest that will begin to prepare them and lay the foundation for future academic pursuits in High School and beyond.
Health and Human Development Program: There is an inextricable link between social and emotional intelligence and overall success in school. Research on pre-adolescent and adolescent health and well-being indicates that students need substantive and explicit health education and prevention programming during the Middle School years.
Students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades are provided with an on-going Health and Human Development (HHD) group which offers accurate, supportive, and direct instruction in emotional, social, moral, physical and mental health awareness.
HHD is a psycho-educational counseling group facilitated by the Middle School Social Worker which meets once a week for 45-minutes. The curriculum is informed by best practices in the field of Health Education and adheres to Common Core standards in Health Education. Over the course of their Middle School years, students will cover and explore topics such as:
- Sexual Development / Puberty
- Sexual reproduction
- Peer Pressure
- Drug/Alcohol Awareness/Education and Prevention
- Nutrition
- Appreciating Differences
- Understanding Different Learning Styles
- Safe Use of Technology
- Conflict Resolution
- Stress Management
The goals of the HHD program are to help students develop greater:
- self-awareness
- confidence
- communication skills
- knowledge of health-related material
- self-advocacy skills
- independent problem solving skills
- control of behavior
- ability to cope with difficult situations
Both HHD and Peer Group, a weekly counseling group, are designed to help students develop safe and effective problem solving strategies that will support them as they navigate and make sense of the increasingly complex situations they confront in Middle School and beyond.
Taking a Team Approach
Aaron’s collaborative educational team consists of a head teacher, assistant teacher, school psychologist, social worker, speech therapist, occupational therapist, learning specialist and enrichment specialists who meet regularly to discuss each student’s progress and review classroom dynamics. Strong communication is a key element to Aaron’s philosophy and insures a consistent educational plan for each student