A Middle

You don't usually think of "a" middle. There is the middle of something, like the middle of your forehead; it can be a place, like middle earth; it can be an adjective, like when someone gets in the middle of a fight. In our case though we really do use it as a middle. Liam is a Middle. To be really detailed he is actually a Young-Middle. Next year he will be an Old-Middle. Then he can move on to be a Young-Old before he becomes an Old-Old.

Confused?

We used to be too!

Liam attends an independent school that started out as an experimental school in the 1970's. They don't use grades like the public system. So Liam is NOT going into grade 1 this year. He will be in the Middles class. And since they have multi-age class rooms, he will be a Young-Middle. The names were decided on by the students in the 1970s. As new classes get added to the school they get named in the same spirit. So the 3 year olds starting in the daycare class this year are being called the Smidgens.

This will be Liam's 4th year at the school. He's been a Little, a Rising 5 and a Young. It's taken me till now to be able to keep all these names straight in my head and make the corresponding link to what grade the kids would be in at any other school. Liam handles it much better. If anyone asks him what grade he is going into he automatically will say "Grade 1" because he knows that outside the school no one will understand their designations.

I can't wait to see what wonderful things Liam will learn as a Middle. As a Little he came home and wowed us with his knowledge of phosphorescent fish (once we could figure out what our 4 year old was trying to say!). As Rising 5 he taught us all about the Titanic. And last year we all got to learn about the Green House effect on our environment. The new year starts in 2 days, so we won't have long till we find out this years topic!