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Billings offers a rich core curriculum designed to engage students in rigorous, multi-faceted ways. Classes align with the developmental growth of our students and are taught with an awareness of each individual's strengths and learning styles.
Nationally recognized programs in science and the arts complement a core humanities curriculum, extensive outdoor program, and wide variety of extra-curricular activities. Strands of work on health issues, including gender study, are integrated across the three years at the school. While classes operate as a cohort, faculty work closely with individual students ensuring they receive the challenge and support they need to thrive.
Our academic program is built on:
Teachers at Billings bring a remarkable breadth of skills to their work with students. They develop curriculum, collaborate and co-plan, engage a wide modality of learning styles, and challenge students to connect content across disciplines and with wider ethical and global contexts. They read and apply research about the best practices for working with early adolescents. Teachers engage students at Billings in many ways – in the classroom, as advisors, as coaches, outdoor leaders, and as partners in inquiry. The result is a model of future mentorship that many students carry – and seek to replicate – for the rest of their academic lives.
The size and structure of Billings allows teachers to be exceptionally nimble and collaborative in their work. Understanding the need for middle schoolers to develop discipline specific skills AND to engage those skills through meaningful applied learning contexts, the school supports a hybrid schedule, balanced between core academic classes and blocked integrated learning opportunities.
What this means is that students take a focused math class, but they also participate in integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Labs and Applied Math Labs over their three years, so that the skills they are developing are joined with opportunities for hands-on inquiry into areas of Engineering, Economics and Civics. Similarly, core classes in Language Arts and History are linked to integrated studies of Humanities which present applications and case studies in areas such as Art History, Law, Ethics, Social Economics and Media Study.
Interdisciplinary teaching, integrated curriculum, thematic instruction, and synergistic teaching are terms used interchangeably to connote one idea – teaching across subjects and skills brings meaning to knowledge.
Billings faculty practice three approaches to interdisciplinary teaching – sequencing, sharing, and integrating – to join together disciplines and give context to learning.
| 6th Grade | 7th Grade | 8th Grade |
|---|---|---|
| Math 6 Language Arts Physical Sciences World Geography ArtsCore PE Foundation and Electives Advisory Technology Spanish |
Math 7/Pre-Algebra Language Arts Earth Sciences U.S. History Arts Electives PE Electives Advisory Integrated Technology Spanish |
Pre-Algebra/Algebra Language Arts Integrated Human Sciences Humanities Electives Arts Electives PE Electives Advisory Integrated Technology Spanish 8th Grade Project |
| 6th Grade | 7th Grade | 8th Grade |
|---|---|---|
![]() In ArtsCore, students build a solid foundation in creative & expressive skills through classes in movement, drama, music and visual visual arts. |
![]() In Earth Sciences, students administer a reseach grant with Seattle's Discovery Park to document vegetation and restore native species. |
![]() In Integrated Human Sciences, students collect and track air particulate data over time analyze and share with other schools in Japan and India. |