What grades are 'middle school'?

[LMD]

We generally don't have middle school here in Australia, we go from Primary (k - 6) to Secondary (7 - 12).

 

When I see homeschool materials that say Middle school on them, what grades are they talking about?  What grade does middle school start at?  Yes, I can have a guess that they're somewhere in the 'middle', but I'd like to hear some concrete specifics please!

 

Thanks!

 

p.s. My first poll!   :D

[creekland]

This will vary by the school district. 

 

In ours, Middle School is solely 7th and 8th grades.  However, before we built the new Intermediate School, Middle School was 5th - 8th.  4th through 6th are now Intermediate... K - 3rd are Elementary.  9th - 12th are High.

[Targhee]

I used to work in a school district where there was a 6-7 middle and a 8-9 junior high (high school was 10-12).  Our local school district has k-6, 7-9, and 10-12 schools.

[SebastianCat]

Middle school here is 6th, 7th & 8th grades.

[Matryoshka]

I voted 6th, as that's when it starts in my town.  You didn't ask, but ends at 8th.

 

In the town I grew up in, it was jr. high, and was 7th-8th.  Dh grew up in another nearby town where it used to be jr. high 7th-9th.  My guess is, though, that they've both probably moved to the more recently popular middle school model.

 

 

[momma2three]

IME, middle school in the US is either grades 6-8, or just grades 7-8 (with grade 1 being roughly for 6 year olds, though different states and different districts have rules for the exact cutoff date, which range from "6 by August 1st" to "6 by December 31")

[kitten18]

I voted 6 because I think that is the most common, 6th-8th grades.

[Mom2TheTeam]

In the area I grew up, it was jr. high, not middle school, it was 7th and 8th.  I don't remember when I first heard middle school, but it still sounds a bit odd to me. And, I still find it very odd to include 6th graders in jr. high/middle school.  To me, they are elementary school still.  LOL.

 

The area we live in now is about an hour and a half from where I grew up.  I honestly have no clue if they call it middle and I don't know when it starts. 

 

(I voted other because we didn't have middle school.)

[Farrar]

"Junior high" used to be the most common model and was grades 7-8 most places, but in the in 80's, the concept of "middle school" was introduced and was intended to be grades 6-8 with "teams" where students were grouped together to change classes and the team teachers would be able to confer about the students and coordinate to provide more support while still having teachers who were content experts instead of generalized teachers like in elementary school.

 

Of course, like all things, the proposed model meeting reality means that districts often need to group students differently for various reasons.

 

Only on this board have heard about the widespread inclusion of 4th and 5th grade in "middle school."  While there are some different grade groupings at various schools here, it's definitely not the norm.

[Arcadia]

When I see homeschool materials that say Middle school on them, what grades are they talking about?  

According to the common textbook publishers its generally 6th to 8th grade

https://www.mheonline.com/networks/

http://www.hmhco.com/shop/education-curriculum/math/secondary-mathematics/holt-mcdougal-mathematics

[twoxcell]

Around here middle school is 6th, 7th, and 8th. Jr. High would be 7th, 8th, and sometimes 9th. ;)

[momma2three]

Yeah, the change here happened in the late 90s I think.  When I was a kid, Junior High was 7th and 8th.  I think it was when I was in high school (I graduated in 97) that they moved the 6th grade to the Junior High and renamed it the Middle School.

[ThatHomeschoolDad]

DW teaches middle - 6-7-8. I went to a middle school that was 5-8.

[Korrale]

I am from Australia too. QLD specifically and it was 1-7 for primary and 8-12 for highschool. live in the US now and I still can't get my head around the whole middle school, Jr high and intermediate school structures.

In our school district middle school is 6-8th grade. But the middle school model where children change classes and teachers starts in the elementary school in 5th grade. It seems to young to me.

[MistyMountain]

In the area where I grew up it changed to 6th grade a few years before I started. In the area I live now middle school is usually 7 and 8th grade but there is one school where it starts in 6th grade. The charter the kids go to goes to 8th grade. 7th and 8th grade is in a different section of the school with lockers.

[RootAnn]

I was one of the first classes to attend a "middle school" in my district. It was 7th-8th. It used to be a jr high (7th-9th). 

 

In our current area, I think middle school starts at 6th, but it might be 5th. (DD#1 says 6th and I'm inclined to go with her memory vs. mine.)

 

I read an interesting study several years ago on including 6th graders with olders in the "middle school model" vs. 6th grade as the oldest of the elementary school. The study strongly said there were better disciplinary outcomes when the 6th graders were the oldest than when they were the youngest. I think you can find it from this link. Here is another document that references the study.)

[Seeking Squirrels]

They don't have "middle school " here. Elementary is k-6, jr high is 7-9, high school is 10-12.

[boscopup]

As long as I can remember, it's been grades 6-8 here. My middle school changed classes like you do in high school. No team teaching or anything. I was in middle school in the late 80s, but it was also like that in the early 80s when my sister attended. The only grade change they made at my elementary/middle school (two buildings attached to each other) was to add half day K the year I started K, then it became full day K the following year.

[KarenNC]

My class was the last class in the last elementary school in our district to include 6th grade, so "middle school" as a 6th-8th grade school goes back at least to the 70s (I'm almost 51). On the other end of elementary, my sister (5 years younger) was in the first public kindergarten class in our district. Prior to that, the only K programs were private church-run ones.

 

It's interesting that even though we've had this middle school set up here for going on 40 years and the cut off date to enter K is 5 by Sept. 1, the public library and nature center programs aimed at "middle school" want children to be 12 years old. With that cut off date, there are many children who don't turn 12 until they are through or almost through 6th grade. I had to argue quite a while to get the nature center to enroll my 11 yo 6th grader in the middle school homeschool science program (her birthday is in August). Since a lot of these programs aim their material at the youngest ages, lumping her in with early elementary ages was not going to cut it.

[Lori D.]

Junior High (Middle School) here in the Southwest of the U.S. is usually grades 7 and 8. Occasionally it is grades 6, 7, 8.

 

I have never heard of grades 4 or 5 being considered "middle school". Usually, I have heard grades 4, 5, 6 being called "upper elementary", while grades 1, 2, 3 are called "early elementary".

[dancingmama]

We also have a variety.  Around here the middle/junior high can start in 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th.  Usually when material is aimed at middle school though, they mean 6-8.  

[debi21]

for us, they had jr high which was 7-9 and then transitioned to middle school which was 6-8 and added 9th to high school. i think based on changing demographics.

 

[DragonFaerie]

Middle school is 6-8, IMO.  But in our small town, the middle school is 5-8; however, I think that's mainly due to space and available buildings.  As the school grew, the old elementary school became the primary school (K-2).  The old middle school became the new elementary school (3-4), and they built a new middle school for 5-8.  I think I heard somewhere that the 5th grade is on its own hall and is kept fairly separate from the other grades, though.

[Kathryn]

When I began middle school, it was 7th. The next year, it was 6th. Where DH went before he moved here, he began middle school in 5th.