Radnor Middle School - Awards and Recognition

Awards and Recognition

Radnor Middle School is a 2003 blue-ribbon school. Radnor Middle was a cover story on the Philadelphia Inquirer because of its eco-friendly building. Radnor Middle School was also named the #1 middle school in the Philadelphia region by Philadelphia Magazine.

The school is also notable for its many two-person integrated/interdisciplinary programs. The original being the Watershed program; an integrated learning program in which approximately forty 7th grade students have a separate curriculum, focused on studying the dynamics of the watershed they inhabit and its history. It is currently in its 21st year, and schools all over the country often send representatives to observe and bring the program back to their own communities.

Radnor Middle School also has three other integrated learning programs: Crossroads, Soundings, and Gateways. Crossroads is for 6th graders, while Soundings and Gateways are for 8th graders. Crossroads takes an integrated look at cultures; starting small and expanding outward into the larger community. Gateways is mainly based upon science and technology, while the Soundings Program is a democratic classroom, where the students take a role in the development of the curriculum which they will study. The Gateways program is in its fifth year, although one year it was known as STEM, and Soundings is in its thirteenth year.

Lastly, there is a two-person interdisciplinary team/class in 7th grade, Team 7C, based on nothing more than the integration of the standard curricula of Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Math taught at RMS. It, like Gateways, is in its fifth year. Reportedly, the learning experience was exceedingly popular with students during its inaugural year, 2007-2008. However, in the 2008-2009 year, It dropped in popularity.

UPDATE: As of the end of the 2008-2009 school year, neither the Soundings program nor Team 7C were scheduled to run during the 2009-2010 school year. Team 7C will not run due to a decrease in overall enrollment in the 7th grade (08-09 enrollment: 290, 09-10 enrollment: 265). A decision was made to suspend Soundings for the upcoming year due to a lack of interest (only 23 student applicants out of a capacity of 40 classroom slots). Instead of the Soundings program, a new team will be formed for the 2009-10 school year, Team 8C, which will be modeled off of a combination of Soundings and the 7C formats, respectively. Soundings is scheduled to return in the 2010-2011 school year.

Radnor Middle School has also seen the creation of yet another two-person team, this one in 6th grade, Team 6C. This team is modeled more from the 7C format of taking the "traditional" subjects/curricula and doing more interdisciplinary work.