Middle School

Arts

Middle School art combines exploration and choice

In the Lower School, your child tried everything. In the Middle School, something shifts. Students begin to choose a medium, an instrument, a role. They move from playing with the arts to practicing them, building real skill and the first signs of a creative identity that's truly their own.

Visual art gets more focused. So do the skills

Middle School is where artistic instinct turns into real technique. Students work across a genuine range of mediums: the building blocks of art, then drawing, painting, printmaking, and ceramics. They don't just make things, they learn why their choices work, sharpening creative skills they'll refine for years to come.

They also learn from the masters. By studying artists across history, students see how great work gets made and begin to understand where their own ideas fit. The studio is challenging and encouraging in equal measure, built on a simple belief: every student can find their footing here.

Middle School play: audition, commit, perform

This isn't a class play anymore. It's a production, and students have to earn their place in it.

Every spring, students in Grades 5 through 8 step into a real audition process. Those who make the cast spend six weeks rehearsing, building a show worth watching. Then they take the stage and perform for peers, families, and the Warrenton community.

Recent productions tell the story: A Wrinkle in Time, Willy Wonka. Into the Woods. Real shows, real stakes, real applause. For our students, the audition itself is a lesson in courage, in commitment, in putting yourself out there and discovering what you're capable of.

Music that builds on years of practice

By Middle School, your child isn't starting from zero. They're building.

Highland's music curriculum begins in third grade, and the fifth and sixth grades are where that foundation pays off. Students sharpen their singing, playing, and listening through age-appropriate songs, instrumental pieces, and activities designed to draw out the real musical potential kids this age carry.

Skills that began as simple notes years ago grow into something fuller, more confident, and more their own.

Confidence becomes competence

The arts at this age do something quietly powerful. They teach students who they are.

In the studio, on the stage, and in the music room, Middle School students learn more about themselves with every project and every performance. They build confidence, yes, but they also build genuine competence, the kind that comes from showing up, working hard, and making something they're proud of.

That combination of knowing you can, and knowing you can do it well, is exactly what they carry into the Upper School.

The journey is just getting started

What begins as choice in the Middle School becomes mastery in the Upper School. Advanced studios. Bigger stages. A creative identity fully their own.

[Explore Arts in Upper School]

Come watch them find their voice

The best way to understand the arts in our Middle School is to step inside the studio mid-project, a rehearsal in full swing, a music room alive with sound. Come visit, meet our faculty, and imagine your child here.