AMY * Northwest

7500 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19119

“…a beacon of excellence…”



Mission Statement

The mission of the Academy for the Middle Years (NW)
is to create
a learning-centered community,
actively engaged in the adventure of quality learning and
preparation for success in a changing, diverse world.

General Description and Faculty Description
Looping and Curriculum
Coalition of Essential Schools
Teaching Teams
Typical Classroom Activities
Directions To AMYNorthwest

The Academy for the Middle Years (NW) is a small, desegregated middle school in the School District of Philadelphia that serves 250 youngsters in grades 6-8. Students are selected via a lottery that draws youngsters from throughout the city solely to maintain a desegregated, racial balance. The faculty is comprised of 14 teachers, a librarian, a counselor, a vice principal and a principal. Support staff includes a secretary, an N.T.A., a food service head, a noon-time aide and three school aides. Sixty-four percent of the faculty has been together for 12 or more years.

In 1996 AMY(NW) decided to institute looping with teachers and students staying together for three years. At the completion our second year of following the students, teachers are reporting that they know their students better, can see and support growth over time in students, and work more closely with parents. Teachers are better able to understand the strengths and barriers particular to individual students as they come to know them over this extended time.

All students are heterogeneously grouped in all classes for all activities so that students experience each other’s differences and similarities. Multicultural studies are incorporated in each grade’s curriculum; in sixth grade this year the essential question is “What is community?”, in seventh grade it is “Who am I?” and in 8th grade “Who Will I Be?” The library is the hub of the school; students sign out their own books, the librarian develops the collection to support curriculum as well as student needs and interests and works with teachers to incorporate multi-modality approaches in lessons.
Our focus is on what we need to do to increase the positive learning results for all of our students.

AMY(NW) has been a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools since 1988 and uses 10 Common Principles to create a school that stresses intellectual rigor for all youngsters in a community that is characterized by decency, trust and unanxious expectation. The Common Principles are:

1. Intellectual focus. The school should focus on helping all students learn to use their minds well.
2. Simple goals. The school’s goals should be simple--that each student should master a limited number of essential skills and areas of knowledge.
3. Universal goals. The school’s goals should apply to all students, although
the means to the goals will vary as those students themselves vary.
4. Personalizaton. Teaching and learning should be personalized to the
maximum extent feasible.
5. Student-as-Worker. The governing metaphor of the school should be
student-as-worker, rather than the more traditional teacher-as-deliverer-of-
imstructional-services.
6. Diploma by “exhibition”. The diploma should be awarded upon a successful
final demonstration of mastery--an exhibition--of the central skills and knowledge of the school’s program.
7. Tone. The tone of the school should explicitly and self-consciously stress
values of unanxious expectations, trust and decency. Parents should be treated
as collaborators.
8. Staff. The principal and teachers should see themselves as generalists first
and specialists second.
9. Budget. Ultimate administrative and budget targets should include a total
student load of 80 or fewer per teacher, substantial time for collective staff
planning, competitive staff salaries, and a per-pupil cost of no more the 10%
above that of traditional schools.
10. Democracy and equity. The school should demonstrate inclusiveness, model democratic practices, honor diversity and challenge all forms of inequity
and discrimination.

Since becoming a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools (1988), AMY has used the Common Principles to make decisions impacting on our teaching and learning community.

Teaching Teams

Teachers meet once a week in team meetings during which they do collaborative planning, child study and meet with parents. Teachers consider what supports are necessary and available for regular and special education students in order for them to succeed. The librarian, the counselor and the principal meet with these teams as resources. Teachers consider research based practices that may serve to assist all students. Teachers use books on tape, math manipulatives, and the computers to extend student learning. For example, all students learn word processing, graphing and drawing and HyperStudio. With these tools they have created displays of data, science fair presentations and personal writings about themselves and their families.

Typical Classroom Activities

In one classroom every class begins with “connections”, a student-led sharing circle in which students talk about issues that concern them. Students listen respectfully and honor the norm of confidentiality. In other classes students choose their own areas of research. In an approach called Literature Circles, AMY students choose their own reading groups by selecting a book they will read with 3-4 others, collaborate to read the book and present key features of the book to their peers usually in a dramatized culminating performance. In science students work cooperatively at learning stations after being taught how to use cooperative learning strategies. Students create family news letters and use HyperStudio to represent family trees. In Social Studies students engage in simulations and mock trials with students taking different roles. Students write self-reflections on their work and introductions to their portfolio selections. AMY(NW) does not have any pull-out special education classes; instead, AMY(NW) has a full inclusion program with special education and regular education learning together.