About Us

BERT and Mission Statement

Mission Statement

Wayland Middle School is a community of learners. We strive to provide a rigorous, stimulating academic environment in which students find both challenge and support. We nurture a sense of curiosity, connection, and love of learning that extends beyond the middle school years. With equal regard, we support the development of social skills by encouraging a fundamental respect for oneself, our environment, and the larger world. Our house mentors - Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Louise Carson, and Martin Luther King, Jr. – model for us individual and collective responsibility and our role in fostering justice. We promote their teachings as we care for every member of our community.

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As a thoughtful teaching and learning environment, we reflect on our mission statement – its language, its meaning, and how to best represent and remind ourselves of its integral role in all we do.  An outcome of this process is BERT. 

BERT embodies the community values at the heart of this mission statement – belonging, empathy, respect, and trust – and signifies the collective responsibility we share in teaching, understanding, and living these values.  This whimsical figure, designed by eighth grader Roksana Habibi in 2009, serves as a visual reminder of our continued commitment to making Wayland Middle School an inclusive environment in which these ideals flourish.  Helping each child find a home away from home is an ethic we all work to foster. 


School Organization and Academic Program

The Middle School offers a challenging core curriculum for young adolescents. Its faculty members share an interest in the academic and developmental needs of middle school-age students.

Wayland Middle school has three houses: Grade Six - Henry David Thoreau House; Grade Seven - Rachel Carson House; and Grade Eight - Martin Luther King House, and two clusters in each house to create smaller administrative units. In addition to the standard curriculum offerings each year (English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Physical Education), themed activities are an integral part of each student's experience. Field trips add to the richness of the Middle School program. For example, in the fall of Grade Six, students, faculty, and parents share in a 10-mile bicycle trip to Walden Pond, the site of Henry David Thoreau's wilderness experience. Students write in their journals, sketch, discover local history, identify flora and fauna, and engage in spirited discussions about Thoreau's ideas.

For Grade Seven students, studies in English, Math, Social Studies, Science, French, Latin, or Spanish, and Physical Education are complemented by a developing appreciation of writer environmentalist Rachel Carson. By year's end, students have embarked on several working field trips to study the ocean and other natural environments and have completed a major environmental research project. Year-long studies often culminate in a three-day field trip to Cape Cod. 

In eighth grade, the core academic program also includes an intensive study of the concept of justice in American History. Grade Eight students traditionally spend five days in Washington, D.C., each May, working in small groups on individual projects.

In the Middle School, students change teachers for each subject. While most classes are heterogeneously grouped, ability grouping is utilized in Mathematics in all three grades and in Science in the eighth grade. Approximately two-thirds of our students complete Algebra I as well as a full year of high school French, Latin or Spanish by the end of the eighth grade.

Health / Arts / Technology Programs

Throughout their three years at the Middle School, students explore a variety of courses in Music, Art, Industrial Arts, Health, and Technology.

Co-curricular Programs

The Middle School has a large chorus, band, orchestra, and a number of smaller performing arts groups, including a jazz band, select chorus, and chamber ensemble. There are a variety of after-school clubs, a Science Olympiad and Math Team, drama performances, and an intramural and interscholastic sports program.

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