Intermediate School Program
The Intermediate School provides the right balance of nurture and challenge for curious, energetic fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. From monthly field trips and daily recess (twice a day) to service learning and interdisciplinary design projects, our Intermediate program is designed to meet the needs of 21st century learners.
Our fourth and fifth grade students spend approximately two-thirds of their day in a homeroom-based program. At the core of this program is the Responsive Classroom curriculum, which emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe community. In their homeroom, students have assigned responsibilities and build relationships with one another and their homeroom teacher. This teacher also instructs them in math, language arts, and social studies. Students leave their homeroom for science, language (French or Spanish), performing and visual arts, library/technology, and religion classes, which are taught by the respective department faculty. These classes and our daily physical education classes not only provide a balanced curriculum for students to explore a range of talents, but also allow them to take advantage of our outstanding specialized facilities.
In sixth grade, they are offered more independence and the opportunity to participate with Middle School students in our daily interscholastic sports program. Students' homeroom teachers are their Humanities faculty who instruct language arts and social studies with a strong interdisciplinary approach. Students have departmental teachers for math, performing and visual arts, language (French, Latin, or Spanish), religion, and science. Library, research, and technology skills are integrated throughout the curriculum. A weekly chapel service is a part of every grade at St. Andrew's. Students culminate their Intermediate School journey with an overnight trip to an island in the Chesapeake Bay, exploring how to extend the responsibility they feel to one another to become stewards of the earth.
By the end of Intermediate School, students are learning with enthusiasm and confidence and have found their place in a caring community. They have a better understanding of themselves as learners, a sense of empathy and kindness for others, and an eagerness to experience the new challenges and opportunities that await them in our Middle School.