SAS Pudong Middle School

How do I…?… have my student excused when they are sick or traveling?  Contact Edith.cai@saschina.org

…set up a meeting with teachers to conference about my student’s progress?  Contact your child’s teacher directly.

…get help with accessing Edline? Contact  Jeff.rosen@saschina.org

.... contact my students counselor?  Jason.Caruana@saschina.org  Laura.cowan@saschina.org

Where can I find …

… information on bus transportation?  yeap@saschina.org

…up to date information on school events?  http://teachers.saschina.org/mspudong

…emails for my child’s teachers?  firstname.lastname@saschina@org

Why doesn’t…

… the school post student grades and assignments?  In middle school, we want students to begin taking responsibility for recording assignments and tracking their own progress.  Students are given Student Agenda books and teachers will post long range project dates and expectations.

… the office stay open past 3:30?  The office staff arrives on campus at 7:30 and leaves at 3:30.  These hours are set by the district for Pudong due to bus transportation and employee contracts.

… Puxi use a Humanities model but Pudong does?  As a new entity, we were able to purposely hire staff that has the training to teach humanities.  This allows us to have a naturally integrated curriculum while meeting the standards and benchmarks.

Who is …?

… the CISSA coordinator?  Karl.zigmand@saschina.org

… activities director?  Todd.parham@saschina.org

…Home Work Opportunity Time (H.O.T.) coordinator:  Patty.winnpenny@saschina.org

What is …?

… MGY Nite?  MYG Nite, Gym spelt backwards, is social opportunity for students to “hang out” and socialize with each other in a structured, supervised location

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When is …?

… the first day of school?  August, 21^st, 2008

…Open House?  September 11^th, 2008

Tags: Frequently Asked Questions

The SAS Middle School Science program is a challenging, integrative, and exploratory experience for our students, who benefit from a vertically aligned, integrated approach to the major topics of Earth, life and physical sciences. Our science curriculum is designed to meet the affective needs of middle school children as well as the academic requirements to be successful in higher levels of scientific investigations beyond the middle school years.

Student-centered activities and learning objectives are designed to address the following goals:

• Facilitate our students with the development of reasoning and critical thinking skills in order to make decisions about the validity and reliability of what they observe
• Provide opportunities for our students to be reflective of their own impacts as consumers to make wise choices for the future.
• Empower students, through scientific literacy, to evaluate data and find solutions to real-world problems
• Encourage students to realize that scientific knowledge is dynamic and requires us to be open and adaptable to new information and situations
• Foster a sense of personal responsibility and independence in our students by taking the initiative to plan, organize and reflect on their own projects, progress and products.
• Develop effective group skills for working in collaborative settings.
• Instill in our students a sense that learning is a dynamic and ongoing process that takes practice and effort to be successful.
• Ensure that students are exposed to, and are skilled in, various technologies to enhance their understanding of scientific processes and content

In addition to representing the SAS science standards and benchmarks, this curriculum also reflects the SAS core values and EAGLES initiatives.

The middle school mathematics program at Shanghai American School is dedicated to providing every student a challenging program combined with a sense of accomplishment. The program gives each student the mathematical understanding, knowledge, and skills that serve as a base for further study throughout their education. Across all grade levels students apply their emerging capabilities of finding and imposing structure, conjecturing and verifying, thinking hypothetically, comprehending cause and effect, and engaging in abstraction and generalization. The math program enables students to organize and consolidate their mathematical thinking through communication with teachers, peers, and parents. Differentiated instruction within the standards are used in the math program to meet the needs of all students based on their readiness level, interest, and learning style. Calculators and other technology are used as a tool to develop a deeper understanding of concepts and student capabilities.

Advisory

Sixth, seventh and eighth grade students are assigned to an advisory group, consisting of an adult advisor and approximately 16-18 students from the same grade. The advisory meets at the beginning of each school day for five minutes to take attendance and to convey announcements. Twice a week, the advisory meets for a full forty-minute period for group activities and a curriculum that focuses on community service and life skills.

The advisory program is intended to serve several purposes. The advisor is an adult (teacher or administrator) who has a consistent and long-term relationship with the students in his or her group, and who serves as an advocate for the individual students. In addition, the advisory group is a defined entity in which a student has automatic membership. A sense of belonging and an environment that is comfortable and secure are developmentally important needs of students this age. Whether for a full period or for five minutes, the advisory serves the very important function of setting the tone for the day.

 
Humanities

The humanities curriculum combines two content areas – language arts and social studies – to offer students opportunities to practice reading and writing skills in real-world contexts. Each humanities unit engages students with a problem, topic-related investigation, or simulation that helps them connects content to authentic experience (in alignment with the standards from the National Council for the Social Studies, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the International Reading Association). The Humanities program can be used in separate social studies and language arts or English class periods, or in one integrated block. In social studies units, students investigate important themes and topics, connecting what they learn about the past with their own lives, and present their findings in various forms including writing. In language arts units, students explore different genres of literature, write original pieces following the conventions of writing, and learn and practice basic grammar skills. In both types of units, students make use of a wide variety of resources including classroom textbooks, primary sources, literature, and experts in the field. Units are provided in a sequence that builds upon mastered skills and prior content knowledge. However, units may be taught at any grade level according to standards and school goals.

Middle School Teaming

The Shanghai American School Pudong Middle School is piloting an approach to integrated learning known as the humanities model.  This model creates natural connections between social studies and language arts by developing thematic units that align directly with the schools standards and benchmarks.  This approach requires teachers to become familiar with all units to be taught and to create integrated themes for instruction.  The Humanities model is not a new practice and is widely recommended by organizations like the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) and Success for All (SFA). With these natural connections in Language Arts and social studies being created, interdisciplinary teams can offer authentic learning experiences.  This model supports reading and writing across disciplines thus providing students a chance to make practical use of their reading, writing, and analytical skills. Each grade level begins with one or more foundation units that familiarize teachers and students with cooperative learning techniques and focus on concrete skills that students apply throughout the year. The remaining units engage students with a problem to solve or a task to complete related to a particular theme or topic.

All units are designed to ground students in solid content knowledge while helping them connect their learning to the world. Units also offer a much-needed opportunity for students to practice their reading and writing skills in a different, real-world context. Because the science and humanities curricula use the same approach to reading and writing, students have the opportunity to apply their skills across the day, leading to a more powerful educational experience.

Shanghai American School – A brief overview

The Shanghai American School, Pudong Campus is a pre-k – 12 school serving a diverse student population from around the world.  The school is situated approximately thirty five minutes from downtown Shanghai and is in a rapidly growing and changing area of China. This website represents the Pudong Middle School under the direction of Dr. Ron Roukema and Dr. Jeff Rosen. 

In 2006, the Pudong Middle school was home to 260 students and in 2007 our population grew to 340.  Also in 2007, we opened a new middle school wing and food court as our board of directors continued to meet the demands of the growing population.  As we look forward to the 2008 school year, we are anticipating an increase of 80 – 100 students making us as large as our sister school across the river.  The grade six, seven and eight students follow a daily schedule developed specifically for each student, which is organized in fifty-five minute periods special periods, a forty minute advisory/elective period and a one hundred and seventy minute core block.

Students attend a language arts/social studies class called "humanities", and a single-period class in mathematics, science, global language, physical education and music. Students also have one period during the year in which they rotate at the semester between visual arts and health education.  The schedule allows for core blocks to occur everyday for 170 minutes and a rotation of 3 days out of 4.  Specials occur daily for 55 minutes each.  Additionally, our school offers a comprehensive elective and advisory program that meets every other day for 40 minutes.  These programs are designed to encourage students to make connections with each other and experiment in activities that they may otherwise not have the opportunity.

Dear Parents,

In that we are currently on an adventure building a fully operational middle school, we are in the process of having teachers define communication protocols. In step with these expectations, we have realized that our school needs to populate our blog with useful information for parents, students and perspective teachers. We are adding a new section to our blog entitled "About Our Programs." The updates will appear as posts at first and then be moved to the "Our Program" section of the blog. We appreciate your feedback on these sections as well as other sections that you would like to see added. Please feel free to add your comments to these entries if you see information lacking or additional topics you would like more information.

Sincerely,

Ron Roukema, Ed.D

Jeff Rosen, Ph.D