Quests

By starting from a question, students are encouraged to learn not just a subject but also its real-world applications. They often lead to culminating projects, like this campaign to raise awareness about Ukraine.

Quests are the foundation of our academic program. Learning in STEM, humanities, and math is built around six-week Quests. Each Quest starts with an essential question like “How can we prevent and respond to discrimination?” or “How can the study of nature inform robotics?, or “What lessons can we learn from golden age civilizations and/or from their falls, and why do those lessons matter to us today?”. Students draw from daily lessons to explore answers to these questions, learning from guest lecturers and excursions to see real-world applications

They brainstorm, test hypotheses, gather data, and create culminating presentations to share their findings, and ways to make a social impact.

Excursions: Real-World Learning

To bring the practical applications of the concepts they study to life, three Wednesdays a month students take an excursion into the field to places like the Oakland Museum, Immigration Stations, China Camp Village, the Lakeview Village Tiny Home, Skyline Studios, and UC-Berkeley’s Disability Cultural Community Center. On these excursions, students learn more about what they are studying and how their studies are applicable to their local communities and the world, bringing their studies true to life which fosters authentic engagement and excitement about their studies. 

Outdoor Education

To bring the practical applications of the concepts they study to life, three Wednesdays a month students take an excursion into the field to places like the Oakland Museum, Immigration Stations, China Camp Village, the Lakeview Village Tiny Home, Skyline Studios, and UC-Berkeley’s Disability Cultural Community Center. On these excursions, students learn more about what they are studying and how their studies are applicable to their local communities and the world, bringing their studies true to life which fosters authentic engagement and excitement about their studies. 

Life Skills and Leadership

Once a month middle schoolers have Life Skills and Leadership Day, where they lead clubs for grades 2-5 and participate in life skill classes of their choice. Subjects include but are not limited to culinary arts, digital arts, and mentorship in lower grade classrooms. 

Advisory

 To guide our three year advisory program, we use the Diving Boards Curriculum, created by Chris Balme of Argonaut, . Students meet by grade level with the same group of students and same faculty advisor on Wednesdays for an hour for the entirety of their middle school years at Aurora. Together they practice mindfulness, engage in a fun warm up activity, and dive into a topic from our Diving Boards Curriculum, or a social emotional topic that a student brings to the group.

Band

Aurora’s Middle School Band is tailored to the talents of each student. Having taught students in earlier grades to read and write music, song and movement, and to play percussion, recorder, and xylophone, our multi-talented Music Specialist Moisés Osorio has middle schoolers put their knowledge to use in a band. Students choose the instrument they want to play, whether it be one they already know how to play or a new one. The Middle School Band performs at school events and assemblies.

Physical Education

A sound body means a sound mind. In addition to intramural sports offered in conjunction with other East Bay independent schools, and daily breaks in our Yard, Greenspace, and Garden Forest, middle schoolers have physical education class twice a week. The focus is on team building, individual goal setting, and tuning in to the needs of one’s body.  

Art

At Aurora, art is integrated into our curriculum. Middle Schoolers explore and create in a variety of mediums, and projects are often tied to the culminating presentations from their Quests. 

Woodshop

Aurora’s goal is always to make learning come to life, and to have students learn by doing. For middle schoolers, woodshop projects are focused on fun and useful deliverables. At the start of each year students create their own lockers. Other projects include finely-crafted model ships and curio boxes. Design thinking, math, and science are all a part of woodshop class.

Spanish

Aurora students start learning how to speak Spanish in Kindergarten. Students have Spanish twice a week and the length of the class increases each year from 30-60 minutes. Our Spanish classes provide instruction, with the goals of exposure, enrichment, and language experience. By the time our students reach middle school they are able to converse, read, and write in Spanish. Our middle school students are ready for high school Spanish when they graduate.