Brewer Middle School is helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by emphasizing the use of critical thinking and creativity. Being able to think critically and creatively is essential to success in college and the workplace. Every lesson taught at Brewer Middle school incorporates these skills.
Standards-based instruction is our highest priority at Brewer Middle School. Our staff in all subject areas are utilizing the state standards to prepare our students with the tools necessary to be college and career ready. Technology is incorporated into lessons regularly and students at Brewer Middle School are gaining important 21st century skills to prepare them well for their future. Students' success in middle school prepares them for a successful high school experience and ultimately a solid career path.
Building life-long readers is an important focus for our school as strong readers impact all subject areas. Reading and writing activities are built into all subject areas. Our school has a Brewer Reads program that implements many strategies to support reading and to improve reading and writing scores. The Brewer Reads program supports reading before and after school, during enrichment time, and provides books, poetry, and short stories to students at no cost to promote reading enjoyment outside of school time. Students who are readers are leaders, and our staff is focused on building a community of readers now so we have a community of leaders tomorrow.
Brewer Middle School has an in-house Fine Arts magnet school called ACTS. Creativity and critical thinking are integral parts of an arts-rich environment. Students participating in the ACTS magnet program participate in art, band, chorus, dance, guitar, orchestra, photography, and theater classes designed for artistically gifted students. These ACTS students have an artistic area of focus and attend that class every day yearlong. In addition, ACTS students participate in rotation classes daily to provide a well-rounded Fine Arts education. Teachers in core subject areas work to provide Arts Integrated lessons to improve student engagement and further support students' artistic gifts.
All students at Brewer Middle School participate in enriching Fine Arts courses; music, art, and band are staples across the entire school. Students also have the opportunity to take chorus, dance, photography, and theater as their schedule allows. Brewer Middle School has received a Developing Arts Program (DAP) grant which has assisted the school with providing additional Fine Arts activities for our students. In the 2020-2021 school year all 6th grade students participated in a week-long Steel Drum class, and all 7th and 8th grade students completed a virtual tour of an art museum and completed additional related arts activities.
In addition to arts integration, teachers in all core and related arts classes are expected to challenge their students with lessons and activities that use critical thinking and creativity every day. Teachers use a variety of techniques to achieve this goal. These techniques include, but are not limited to, Flipped Classrooms, Responsive Classroom, cross-curricular units, and a wide variety of technology-based learning. We have instructional coaches in math, English Language Arts, science, social studies, and technology who actively assist all of our teachers in the creation and execution of lessons that require critical thinking and creativity. Our teachers also have access to a plethora of professional development. These opportunities include the South Carolina Association of Middle-Level Education conference, the Making Middle Grades Work Conference, the South Carolina EDTech conference, and a number of local professional development choices throughout the school year.
Our schools' emphasis on critical thinking, reading skills, arts integration, and building 21st century skills is helping all students develop the World Class Skills as identified in the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate.
Amanda Hamm, Principal
Dean Lollis, School Improvement Chairperson
