6th - 8th Grades
Middle School
Middle School students are beginning to make critical and complex life choices and are forming the attitudes, values and dispositions that will direct their behavior as adults. Whittle School & Studios will enhance their healthy growth as lifelong students, ethical and democratic citizens, and increasingly competent, self-sufficient individuals who are optimistic about the future and will succeed in our ever-changing world.
Beginning in the 8th grade, students are eligible to take advantage of our residential life program. Our five- and seven-day boarding options give students the chance to immerse themselves fully within the culture of the school. They will have opportunities to develop deep relationships with their peers and the residential faculty through social activities during the evenings and weekends.
Essential Practices
Choosing the Right Path
Middle School is a place where students are getting comfortable in their own skin. They are learning who they are, how their identity is evolving, the best ways for them to learn, how they treat others, and how they deserve to be treated. They are meeting these challenges with equal energy and enthusiasm and celebrating the process along the way.
Our hope is to develop dispositions that are lifelong. It is preparation for high school, yes, but also aimed towards nurturing skills that stay with students forever. Middle School can be high stress, anxiety filled years in which students can stumble due to social pressures. We support the whole child in all dimensions and believe students are more likely to reach their academic potential when they are most comfortable with who they are.
Students want to be safe, known, valued, and celebrated for their uniqueness. That is what we strive to bring to the Middle School experience at Whittle School & Studios.
The Teacher Student Dynamic
All of our teachers are students, and all of our students are teachers. They are always learning from one another and as a class together. Our classrooms are created to encourage an ongoing exchange of ideas through learning, projects, and experiences. Inside the classroom, our students will present completed projects with documentation, Creative Art & Design (CAD) work and more. Outside the classroom, our teachers will continue their professional development to be lifelong learners.
Cultural Competencies
We acknowledge that the way to prepare our students to be global citizens is to recognize, incorporate, and nurture the unique differences and similarities of our cultures. We incorporate this thinking into all aspects of the student experience from the academic to the mind body practices we engage in to our unique experiential learning commitment interacting with experts at work in a wide range of specialties.
A Typical Day
This schedule reflects a typical day in a typical year.
Our aim is to open 5-days a week this fall. Due to COVID-19 the schedule is subject to change. This summary gives a relevant outline of our goals for each student every day.
8:15-8:30
Morning Meeting
8:30-9:15 a.m.
Maths
9:20-10:05 a.m.
Language & Culture
10:05-10:20 a.m.
Break
10:20-11:20 a.m.
STEM
11:25-12:05 p.m.
Advisory
12:05-12:45 p.m.
Lunch
12:50-1:35 p.m.
Acceleration
1:40-2:40 p.m.
Creative Arts & Design
2:45-3:45 p.m.
Humanities
*Middle School students incorporate 3 hours of physical education per week during time slots in which their STEM, CAD or Humanities classes have a ‘drop day’ and do not meet.
X-Day
X-Days (Experiential Learning on our Expeditionary “X-Days”) are the foundation of experiential learning at Whittle. X-Days will encompass the following experiences:
Deepening classroom learning through the study of Washington, DC: its museums, businesses, neighborhoods, natural landscape, architecture, exhibitions, galleries, research institutes, and its people.
Developing their own strengths and skills through workshops, clubs, conferences and working with expert guest speakers and mentors.
Exploring the world of work through placements and internships in local businesses, industries and organizations.
Engaging in meaningful service to the local community via partnership with charities and non-governmental organizations.
X-Days occur once a week, alternating between “inward X-Days,” which include working on campus with invited experts, Center of Excellence research and labs, collaborative project work, special campus-wide “Awareness Days” on an important topic, clubs, exhibitions, performances; and “outward X-Days,” where students go off-campus to engage with civic partners, entrepreneurs, policymakers and the environment of Washington, DC.
Visiting Artist Helen Zughaib inspired Middle School students to reflect on themes of heroism and migration during a series of internal X-Day workshops. A Lebanese-born mixed-media artist, Zughaib explained the Arab Spring and the start of the Syrian conflict through the lens of, and as a byproduct of, global warming and drought. Taking cues from Zughaib’s work, students created their own mixed-media collages on the topic of water.
The Eighth Grade traveled to Wilson, NC for an overnight X-Day trip. The draw was the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park. The students were working on a project cycle about whirligigs and had spent that month learning about the physics of whirligigs, as well as their history. The trip was the field work part of the project cycle, and after having seen Mr. Simpson’s creations in person, each student would return to DC to design and create their own.
Middle & Upper School Division Head
Valmir Gomes
Valmir Gomes is an energetic, people and growth-oriented educational leader. He has built his career in a variety of roles that have given him a comprehensive understanding and skillset to deal with all aspects of school life. He has taught Humanities (e.g., World and US History, Comparative Politics, English as a Second Language) and Technology/Digital Media courses in all school divisions. He has led elementary and secondary international schools in positions such as instructional coach, educational technology specialist, department head, division coordinator, AP/IB coordinator, academic dean, and dean of students. He holds a BA in Portuguese and English Language and Literature by the Brasilia University Center, Brazil, and an MS in Multidisciplinary Educational Studies and a Certificate of Educational Leadership by the State University of New York - Buffalo. He is an experienced international educator who has served four international and American schools in China and Brazil over the past 14 years. Additionally, he is an avid scholar of team dynamics and positive psychology. In that field, he has worked with the consulting company Losada Line which focuses on the training and development of leadership teams as a means to achieve sustainable high performance and overall team flourishing.
He joined Whittle in 2019 as an Academic Dean to the Shenzhen Campus where he supervised the curriculum design and instruction. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he changed positions to become the DC – HQ liaison on academic and advisory matters. In March 2021, he gladly took on the position of Assistant Head of School for Middle & Upper School. The Whittle vision and focus on creating a progressive, relevant, and holistic learning experience with students’ best interests at the heart of every decision are what drew him to Whittle School & Studios. Valmir was key to the development of Whittle’s Shenzhen campus and ever since taking up an HQ role, he has been paramount in resetting of Whittle’s mission, vision, and educational principles.
