The following programs are unique to the Riverview Junior High School. Along with the teachers and curriculum, these serve as some of the foundational pillars that make our program both unique and successful. They support our Junior High philosophy that students need to have a sense of identity in middle school and these programs help students achieve that goal. In addition, they help us teach valuable social and organizational skills and also help students see that school is not only a place to learn but also somewhere they can have fun and be a part of something they are proud of.
SCHEDULE
The Junior High schedule is unique in its design as it caters towards the specific needs of adolescent learners. We prioritize all core academic classes and have them set first in a student's day during periods 1 - 5. This is to assure that students can stay focused and engaged in these vital core classes as opposed to when they have potential to lose focus later in the school day. The majority of students will also be given an academics and enrichment period at the end of the day to help them manage their academic workload. The academic and enrichment class will provide students opportunities that may include receiving support with iReady lessons, receiving support or enrichment in targeted group instruction from teachers, grade conferencing and progress monitoring, and even participation in school clubs and activities.
CURRICULUM
The Junior High curriculum is built on the foundation of whole child instruction. It emphasizes not only academic skills and strategies along with class content but also promotes social, emotional, and mental health and development. Our team approach has teachers communicating multiple times throughout a school week in order to identify student needs to find success. Teachers, counselors, and administrators take time to instruct students on organization, time management, and social skills in order to best prepare students for challenging schedules in high school.
TOURNAMENTS
Junior High students will participate in homeroom competitions at the end of every nine weeks as well as sporadically throughout the school year. Both current and former students identify the tournaments as some of the most fun and engaging activities in the Junior High; however, these tournaments serve a far greater purpose than competitive fun. The tournaments are opportunities for students to practice vital social and emotional skills such as teamwork, leadership, collaboration, and problem solving. They promote engagement and inclusion, asking students to positively support and include members of their homeroom to find success. They offer an opportunity for students to plan, communicate, and play together, building cohesion as a group along the way. Participation in these events requires students to demonstrate appropriate behavior throughout the school year along with maintaining appropriate grades in their classes; thus, it also serves as a motivational factor for their academic and behavioral success.
TOWN HALL MEETINGS
Town Hall meetings are a time for students and teachers to spend time together and celebrate achievements in the Junior High. Most notably, these meetings serve as a time to honor and award students for positive behaviors as a part of the Junior High's Recognizing Raiders program (sponsored by the Pittsburgh Optimist Club). This program helps promote positive behaviors in school in many categories such as leadership, collaboration, positive attitude, growing from mistakes, creativity, and more! Town Hall meetings occur about once a month and serve as another opportunity for students to work together with students in their homerooms to participate in creative, performative, and academic challenges that promote leadership/collaboration as well as school pride.
HOMEROOMS
Junior High homerooms are far more than a collection of students arranged in alphabetical order. A student's homeroom in the Junior High serves as one of the best opportunities for social learning in the Junior High. As mentioned above, this group of students will be presented with a diverse collection of challenges throughout the school year that will help them be better listeners, leaders, and collaborators. The challenges presented to students and their homerooms are varied and can be athletic, academic, artistic, creative, performative, critical thinking, and more. Thus, we often tell our students that each individual is important to the team in a homeroom as everyone can bring something different and beneficial to the team.
BEHAVIOR MONITORING
At the Junior High, we invest time in monitoring, encouraging, and refocusing student behaviors because we recognize it as a vital part of the education process. This is why we implement both positive and negative behavior programs at this critical developmental period. The Recognizing Raiders program helps us promote positive behaviors and our R.E.D. card (Rethink Everyday Decisions) helps reduce negative behaviors. The R.E.D. Card program is an appropriate transitional system for our Junior High students who are not yet ready for the disciplinary program of a high school student but are also ready for more independence and maturity from a clip up chart in elementary school. The R.E.D. Program will give students a clear visual identification of a negative behavior and then encourage them to take responsibility to both inquire about the behavior as well as improve upon it in the future.