Northwest Academy Exploratory (8th Grade) students flex their intellectual and artistic muscles as they work with increasingly complex and challenging material and projects.  These students experience a high school caliber curriculum that prepares them to achieve with confidence when they enter ninth grade.

In English, students hone their writing, comprehension, and analytical skills and are introduced to increasingly challenging literature. In both the Modern Conflicts and Earth Science classes, students examine the relationship between scientific resource management issues and world conflicts. Arts electives round out a student’s day with choices in Music, Dance (modern and jazz), Visual Art, Digital Photography, and Theatre (Shakespeare). In the teacher-guided High School Lab/Study Hall, students sharpen work habits they will need to succeed in high school. Students may take an optional world language course, choosing from Mandarin, Spanish, or French, at the Introductory through Fluent levels.

Exploratory students culminate their middle school experience with a thesis project for Modern Conflicts, which assesses each student’s writing, critical thinking, and work habits. This project includes the development of a 7-10 page thesis by each student and an artistic response project on the international issue they have studied. The Exploratory Retreat allows students more in-depth study of an environmental topic relevant to their classroom studies in Earth Science. In math, students are evaluated and placed according to their skill level, typically in Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry, or Algebra 2 .