Our district/school is helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by working to fulfill the Mission statement of Blythewood Middle School: to maximize student learning by providing engaging and meaningful opportunities in a rigorous environment where relationships are built, successes are celebrated and students are competitive in the 21st century.
Our school-wide motto for the 2018-2019 school year was #BMSMakeItHappen. This motto set the tone for all of the things, collectively, that the faculty/staff and students hoped to accomplish, serving as a reminder to remove excuses and barriers that would limit our success.
Continued emphasis was placed on individual student achievement as we continued to strive for academic success for ALL students. To this end, as part of the district’s new initiative, Blythewood Middle School began Benchmark Testing for the first time, in all tested subject areas for end of year SC Ready and SC PASS tests. The Benchmark tests served as a means for assisting teachers in teaching to the intent of the SC standards, helping students achieve mastery of the standards, and better preparing students for end of year state standardized tests.
To help our students take ownership of their learning and serve as their own best advocate, Blythewood Middle School held its first Student Led Conferences this school year. During the set aside two-day conferences, students demonstrated to their parents an understanding of their content area strengths and weaknesses, and ways that they could improve in noted areas of challenge. Students further demonstrated an understanding of their personal academic data as they shared with their parents/guardians their MAP scores, SC Ready and SC PASS scores, and reviewed the content of their report cards and further shared why they received the grades that they did. Our parents left thoroughly impressed with their student’s ability to articulate their educational landscape and eager to see more of their students leading conferences in this manner.
At Blythewood Middle School, arts continued to be a pivotal part of our school. Together, our drama and chorus program performed another stage production, “The Wizard of Oz,” and our orchestra and band programs again brought home Superior ratings at their Concert Performance Assessments. Our Mock Trial team was one of 12 teams in the state to move from Regional to State Level Competition.
Blythewood Middle School continues to recognize the role that Character Education and Social Emotional Learning play in the well being of our students. To this end, The Flippen Group’s Capturing Kids Hearts program was implemented during the 2018-2019 school year. As a result of Capturing Kids Hearts, our faculty/staff continues to work towards building relationships with every student knowing that we must reach them before we can teach them.
