"We prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be."

Curriculum Detail

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Physical Education and Dance

The Physical Education program in Middle School is composed of three separate courses that work together to provide students a well-rounded, comprehensive education in kinesthetic awareness, teamwork, and mind-body connection.  The program consists of dance classes, health and wellness classes, and physical education classes in the gymnasium. Combined, these classes meet five times per eight-day cycle.

In addition to the scheduled physical education classes, Middle School students have access to a variety of Athletics sports teams, beginning in 5th grade.

  • Physical Education

    Every Middle School student is required to participate in scheduled Physical Education classes. These classes meet either two or three times per cycle. The curriculum is designed to help develop individual skills, sportsmanship, kinesthetic awareness and a comprehensive understanding of the activities covered. There is a mixture of mainstream sports, such as, soccer, basketball, baseball and volleyball along with non-traditional sports, including, cricket, rugby, kin ball and pickle ball. There is also a climbing wall that is utilized to teach trust, perseverence, problem solving, and climbing technique. 

  • Dance

    The Middle School dance curriculum focuses on dance as a fundamental human experience used as cultural communication, as a vehicle for both reinforcing and challenging societal norms, as individual artistic expression and as a means for physical well being. 
     
    During their middle school years, students explore contemporary and traditional movement and vocalization from the African Diaspora. Dance classes covering forms such as the Rara from Haiti, Capoeira from Brazil and South African Boot Dancing develop each dancer’s relationship to musicality, spatial awareness, body control, polyrhythm, percussion and vocalization. Students have opportunities to awaken their individual and collective dance imaginations by choreographing original vernacular movement, working in small groups and practically applying the concepts they cover in class to the culture of their class. 
     
    These explorations are demanding physical endeavors. The students are tasked with high intensity movements that provide them with a means for both physical fitness and artistic expression. 

  • Health & Wellness

    The Middle School Health Program spans 5th, 6th and 8th grades. Students are introduced to the social, physical and emotional aspects of pre-adolescence. Personal growth and social skills are developed through lessons and discussions. As students’ progress through Middle school they are asked to think and discuss topics that directly affect them, such as puberty, while also projecting themselves into the future to think about issues and decisions that will become relevant such as, birth control, STI’s, sexual preference and gender relations. 
Friends Seminary actively promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in all its programs and operations, including admissions, financial aid, hiring, and all facets of the educational experience. To form a community which strives to reflect the world’s diversity, we do not discriminate on the basis of race or color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, economic background, physical ability, sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation. Friends Seminary is an equal opportunity employer.
FRIENDS SEMINARY
222 East 16th Street
New York, NY 10003
P: 212-979-5030
F: 212.979.5034
Friends Seminary — the oldest continuously operated, coeducational school in NYC — serves college-bound day students in Kindergarten-Grade 12.