Middle School

At Meridian, our middle school comes to life by turning our nation's capital into a living classroom and engaging in investigative study and real-life learning.

Our middle school classrooms are set up with multiple learning centers, each with a different engaging activity or lesson. Students learn to weave educational subjects together by exploring multiple angles of a particular concept, and benefit from our school's partnerships with nearby museums, theaters, and other cultural institutions. They learn to explain their thinking and engage in civil discussions through guided classroom conversations.

Every student at Meridian receives 90-120 minutes of daily literacy instruction, taught by teachers who are trained in reading best practices. Our middle school students engage in our WIN (What I Need) block for personalized, targeted and reading support Through partnerships with Howard University and community poets, students learn to embrace a literacy-rich culture and develop a love for reading, writing, and storytelling.

Language learning is a foundational pillar of our school. Through cultural showcases, multilingual library collections, bilingual school announcements, and our word-of-the-week program, students learn to understand and embrace diverse languages and cultures.

The arts are central to who we are as a school community, and arts learning is woven into every subject area at Meridian. Opportunities for creativity are integrated throughout our mathematics, science, literacy, and social studies curricula, where middle schoolers explore hands-on creation.

Some recent middle school projects include:

• In-classroom visits from young adult author Padma Venkatraman and a National Geographic jounralist
• Our annual Science Fair that encourages independent investigation and exploration
• Students using specialized essay questions in social studies to explore primary and secondary source topics and create responses