The Middle School is the largest pastoral sub-group in MGS comprising three year groups – Years 9, 10 and 11 – and approximately 630 boys between the ages of 13 and 16.
As they enter Middle School, most boys are approaching an exciting and often the most challenging period of their lives as they leave childhood behind and, over a period of one to two years, transform into young men ready to prepare for the time when they will make their way independently in life.
Pupils are being prepared to sit their first external examinations – IGCSEs – and it is a time when they have more opportunity than ever to socialise and to take part in co-curricular activities both inside and outside School.
On entering Middle School, boys join new forms with new form tutors and many new teachers; they remain in these forms during Years 9,10 and 11. Pupils have the opportunity to add some new subjects to their curriculum and they make their final subjects choices for IGCSE in Year 9. Middle School pupils sit their IGCSE examinations at the end of Year 11.
We view Year 11 as a time of transition between Middle School and the Sixth Form. Pupils once again join new forms but now they are taught in sets comprising different combinations of boys for each subject.
As Head of Middle School, my greatest reward is to see new Sixth Form students arrive at School in September, smartly dressed in their new suits, socially assured and ready for the final approach to university; and to remember the child who joined the Middle School three years previously with so much promise.
