Mackintosh Academy offers a unique and specialized program for Middle Year Students. We recognize and support the middle grades as a unique developmental stage apart from the primary and high school grades. Our small learning community cultivates a safe, stable, and mutually respectful environment which supports all students’ intellectual, ethical and social growth. Students at Mackintosh have the opportunity for both independent inquiry and learning in cooperation with others. Guided by a faculty experienced with gifted and twice exceptional students, middle school students at Mackintosh benefit from the intellectual challenge provided by fellow gifted classmates, a small and supportive community, and the opportunity to proceed at a pace directed by their own intellectual curiosity and interests.
Our curriculum provides our students with the academic foundation and skills to continue on in any challenging high school or preparatory school environment. As a formally designated candidate for Middle Years Programme authorization by the International Baccalaureate Schools (IB), we employ the Middle Years Programme (MYP) curricular framework which helps ensure every individual student is engaged, challenged, pushed to be an independent thinker and use his or her knowledge as a stepping stone for action within their world. The MYP Programme values making a student’s studies connect to their real life experiences and that the students understand the “so what” and value in the classroom activities. To ensure that this happens, studies are taught with real life connections with one or more of the five areas of interaction:
Community and Service
Health and Social Education
Environments
Human Ingenuity
Approaches to Learning
Students will take the following classes in the MYP programme with authentic, interdisciplinary connections made as often as possible. The MYP staff plans, as a team, by first looking at the MYP fundamental concepts of a holistic learning (how do plan activities which highlight the interdependence between areas of knowledge), intercultural awareness (how can teach understanding of different societies and cultures within our subject and responsibilities as a global citizen), and communication. Detailed course outlines are available in each of the following subjects:
Humanities
Mathematics
Sciences
Language A (English),
Language B (Spanish)
Technology
Physical Education
Technology (Industrial Arts, Home Economics, and Information Technology)
This challenging curriculum prepares our students for the International Baccalaureate Degree program offered at local IB public high schools, in schools across the nation and around the world. With the benefits of our rich preparation, our graduates also have gained admission to the best private college preparatory schools in Colorado and around the nation. Our graduates have matriculated to IB Degree programs, Colorado Academy, Kent Denver, Mullen, Regis Jesuit High School, St. Mary’s, and Denver University High School as well as preparatory schools around the world. Many of our students going to these fine private schools received scholarships to assist with tuition.
The IB Diploma Programme is an academically challenging, pre-university course of study designed to meet the needs of international minded, motivated high school students. Students with International Baccalaureate Degrees are strongly recruited by many colleges and universities, and some offer scholarships and college credit to students with this degree. For our graduates who do not enter an IB Degree program, the higher-level thinking skills and academic preparation allows them to pursue the myriad of options available in rigorous high schools or preparatory schools.
For more information, please read the IB-MYP online document called MYP: A Basis for Practice.
