Academics

Middle school English uses a variety of sources to complete the many state standards in English. For reading, students use a digital reading series called Study Sync which is a division of McGraw Hill as well as Novel studies. The students participate in Daily Language Review to practice grade specific grammar skills. Students complete small writing assessments as well as the required larger writing pieces:  narrative, explanatory, and argumentative. Both use the ILEARN scoring rubric to prepare for the stat assessment. Students learn to create Works Cited and formally use cited information in their writing.

Spanish is taught to students in kindergarten through 8th grades. Kindergarten through 2nd grade students enjoy Spanish once a week and third grade through 6th grade students participate in Spanish class twice a week. Finally, 7th and 8th grade students have Spanish three times a week.  Students in the early grades are taught through a whole language approach. Older students analyze Spanish in order to comprehend, speak, read, and write in Spanish.  The final semester of 8th grade is taught all in Spanish.  All grades do activities to learn about Hispanic culture as well.  If needed, students transferring into St. Malachy can receive extra help during the school day or after school in order to assist with transitioning into Spanish class.

We offer Art, Library, Music, Physical Education, Spanish, and Technology to all of our students. Elementary students have Art, Music, PE, and Spanish twice a week, and Library and Technology once a week. Our middle school students have Spanish and PE twice a week and Library once a week for the entire school year in addition to their Specials Block.

For middle school students, the first two class periods make up our Specials Block. The first quarter of the school year students have a Learning Lab using Freckle Education by Renaissance Learning. Then students rotate through the special classes for the next three quarters. Their special classes are Art, Music, Computer Science/Coding, Technology, Freckle, and E-Lab.