Middle school is a time of great transition and opportunity. It can be a time when some students develop key strategies around resilience, grit, and buoyancy, and others can be inspired to move outside of their comfort zone academically and socially. At the same time, middle school can also be a time when students quickly fall off track and feel defeated, especially if they have adverse experiences in or outside of the classroom.

Research suggests that a student’s grades in the ninth grade are the biggest predictor of high school graduation. One of the underlying goals of the Life Navigator Middle School Program is to help students develop intrinsic motivation around key executive functioning skills during the transitional middle school years so that students are more able to sustain the transition to ninth grade with skills and habits in place.

Our middle school model can be modified to a junior high curriculum, provided there is a weekly advisory program in place. To learn more, please feel free to contact us.

While the initial focus of the Life Navigator Middle School Program is reaching students in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades, we also recognize that many high school students greatly benefit from the curriculum and programming. We are working to develop a coordinating curriculum for high school students and are happy to put you on our waiting list for the launch.

The Life Navigator Middle School Program focuses on a train-the-trainer model that uses existing staff and administrative structures within the school, and provides additional support in the form of an advisory curriculum, which actually reduces teacher workload. We believe that this model is critical not just for faculty and staff buy-in, but also for long-term sustainability. The program is also designed so that all students benefit, which is important for several reasons revealed in our research and needs assessment. Students who are doing reasonably well in school but need resources to increase the chances of social and economic mobility are often overlooked in current programming initiatives throughout the country. Because we believe peer-to-peer sharing or exchange of social capital is at once both powerful and empowering, a program that celebrates the potential of all students and works to build community and break down social barriers within a school has the potential for greater long-term impact.  Instead of being something extra or additional, this program is designed to be easily worked into already-existing programming, and the model is such that it creates a win-win for classroom teachers and the school as a whole. For instance, as students develop better executive functioning skills through this program, they are more likely to be intrinsically motivated because they feel a sense of autonomy (control over their choices), competency (they feel as though they have skills to do the work), and belonging (they feel as though their place within the school community matters). Finally, the Life Navigator Middle School Program is outcomes focused. Success comes from students picking up habits around organization, time-management, prioritization, planning and regrouping that will serve them over time.

Schools that participate in the Life Navigator Middle School Program benefit from:

• Needs assessment to observe classroom dynamics and current strategies
• Twice-yearly professional development training for faculty and staff
• Advisory curriculum and related training for faculty and staff
• Student presentations and parent education evening
• Programming suggestions for follow-up parent-student night
• Weekly check-ins between the school coordinator and the Life Navigator coach
• At least three follow-up school visits throughout the school year
• Strategies for data collection and implementation

Initial response and feedback to our programming has been incredibly positive, and we are committed to thoughtful, sustainable, impactful scale and growth. We currently have a waiting list for middle schools and junior high schools interested in being involved.  To add your school’s name to the list, please have a school leader or district administrator contact us.