Grade 5-8 Middle School

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The CWS Arts include Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Visual Art, and Music Curriculum

Dance
CWS Dance education goes beyond the study of movement to an investigation of the principles and concepts that govern and define arts. CWS students will find a powerful mode of learning and self-expression that does not rely on verbal communication. CWS students will learn to make connections between the physical self and emotional, values, thoughts, and beliefs.

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Drama
CWS Drama is a unique art form and a way of teaching that can help you discover, feel, and express the significance of the things that matter to you. Using the elements and forms of drama, CWS students can demonstrate understanding in a variety of ways, including representing, symbolizing, writing, moving, and speaking. A range of theatrical conventions and techniques are covered.

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Media Arts
CWS Media Arts uses emergent and established technologies to create art forms and explore contemporary issues through many integrated media. CWS Media Arts are always in a state of flux due to the exciting intersection of available technologies and creative ideas.

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Visual Arts
Through CWS visual art courses CWS students will become more visually aware and perceptive of the world around them.  Students will be encouraged to express themselves by the use of various forms of art projects.

Music
CWS Music courses in MSP are performance-oriented and reflect the interests and needs of local communities.

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The CWS French as a Second Language Curriculum

Learning French as a second language (FSL) at CWS World Schools enhances your overall learning skills. This curriculum at the MSP level enhances the ability to speak and understand French allows CWS students to communicate with French-speaking people in Canada and around the world, to understand and appreciate the history and evolution of their cultures, and to develop and benefit from a competitive advantage in the workforce.

The expectations for CWS FSL are organized into four distinct but interrelated strands:

• Listening
• Speaking
• Reading
• Writing

The language structures, grammar, and language learning skills in the four strands overlap with and strengthen one another.

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The CWS Language Curriculum

The CWS Middle School Program language courses develop skills in six areas:

• Listening
• Speaking
• Reading
• Writing
• Viewing
• Presenting

CWS students in the Middle School Years will:

• read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, graphic, and informational texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning;
• recognize a variety of text forms, text features, and stylistic elements and demonstrate an understanding of how they help communicate meaning;
• use knowledge of words and cueing systems to read fluently;
• reflect on and identify their strengths as readers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading.

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The CWS Social Studies Curriculum

The social studies at CWS are enhanced by the introduction of the study of History and Geography in the late Middle School years.  In CWS social studies, history, and geography, students develop skills, knowledge understanding, and attitudes that will serve them both inside and outside the classroom, including in their communities and the world of work.

The focus of teaching and learning in the social studies, history, and geography curriculum is the development of transferable skills that students need to acquire and apply knowledge and understanding.

CWS students apply these skills in a variety of contexts to:

• examine information critically,
• to assess the significance of events and processes,
• to develop an understanding of and
• to respect different points of view, and to reach supportable conclusions, and propose solutions to problems.

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The CWS Science Curriculum

The CWS Science curriculum in the Middle School Years involves fundamental concepts are key ideas that provide a framework for the acquisition of all scientific and technological knowledge. These courses also help students to integrate scientific and technological knowledge with knowledge in other subject areas, such as mathematics and social studies. The fundamental concepts that are addressed in the curricula for science and technology in Grades 5 to 8 are:

• matter,
• energy,
• systems and interactions,
• structure and function,
• sustainability and stewardship, and
• change and continuity.

As CWS students progress through the curriculum from Grades 5 to 8, they extend and deepen their understanding of these fundamental concepts and learn to apply their understanding with increasing sophistication.

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The CWS Mathematics Curriculum

The CWS presents seven expectations that describe the mathematical processes students need to learn and apply as they work to achieve the expectations outlined within the five strands.

The mathematical processes that support effective learning in mathematics are as follows:

• problem-solving;
• reasoning and proving;
• reflecting;
• selecting tools and computational strategies ;
• connecting;
• representing;
• communicating

The CWS mathematical processes can be seen as the processes through which students acquire and apply mathematical knowledge and skills. Each grade in the Middle Years Program focuses on different areas of mathematics keeping in mind the mathematical support processes that are outlined above.

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The CWS Physical and Health Education Curriculum

The expectations for CWS health and physical education are organized into three distinct but related strands:

• Active Living,
• Movement Competence, and
• Healthy Living.

Integral to expectations in all these strands is a further set of expectations, presented at the start of each grade. These are the living skills – the personal, interpersonal, critical, and creative thinking skills that are essential to the achievement of expectations in the three strands. The living skills expectations are to be taught and evaluated in conjunction with learning in each of the strands. CWS students make the learning in health and physical education personally relevant to students, as CWS students learn to apply them in a variety of contexts that relate to their everyday lives.

The CWS study in the physical education curriculum evaluates when dealing with sports activities by looking to areas of:

• Skills;

• Stability with static balance, in which the body remains in place but moves around its horizontal or vertical axis, and stability with dynamic balance, in which core strength is used to maintain balance and control of the body while moving through space (e.g., bending, stretching, twisting, turning, rolling, balancing, transferring weight, curling up, landing from a jump);

• Locomotion or traveling skills used to move the body from one point to another (e.g., walking, wheeling, running, skip ping, hopping, galloping, chasing, dodging) ;
• Manipulation skills, which involve giving force to objects or receiving force from objects when sending, receiving, or retaining objects (e.g., throwing, catching, trapping, collecting, kicking, punting, dribbling, carrying, volleying, striking);