Program Feature: Middle School Afternoon Activities
The Niles Bolton Middle School offers an array of engaging activities after school for all students.
Learning doesn’t stop at the Niles Bolton Middle School Complex at the end of the school day.
Students in grades 6-8 now have a chance to get involved after school even if they aren’t on a Middle School sports team. Middle School faculty members have offered a variety of new afternoon activities that appeal to all students.
“This year we were purposeful in increasing our after-school offerings and we have found success with these new opportunities, especially for students who are not focused on athletics,” said Head of the Middle School Mr. Bill Rothe. “We want to continue to grow this aspect of the Middle School and have further ideas around offerings like debate or perhaps Model UN which would match nicely with our mission.”
On any given afternoon, you might find a Middle School student snapping photos for the yearbook, working on coding skills, studying for a math competition, or even enjoying a beautiful day while fishing at a local stream. Read more about our Middle School afternoon activities:
Adventure and Service
The Adventure and Service program, led by science teacher and experiential education coordinator Mr. Johnathan BySura, is designed to give students an opportunity to be active and adventurous in their daily life, while also looking for ways to give back to the community at Rabun Gap and at large. Students are encouraged to seek out challenges by choice; they are taught to leave their comfort zones, but only within their personal limits. The program helps students overcome fears, learn to help others, and ultimately gain confidence in themselves and those around them. Twenty-two students joined the adventure club this year.
The group worked on community service projects around the campus of the Middle School. One such project was the construction of the GaGa ball pit; students spent an afternoon with power tools putting the pit together. It has been a welcome addition to the outdoor play area at the school. Other service projects they participated in ranged from working at the Northeast Georgia Food Bank to assisting the Environmental Stewardship Program in the Upper School.
Enjoying a healthy lifestyle is a huge component of the group. They look for ways to promote being active without having to be involved in competitive athletics. The students are enjoying hiking, fishing, ropes challenges, canoeing, and paddleboarding this year as they participate in Outdoor Adventure during the spring season.
“Students seem to be enjoying the first year of this program. As we move forward with it, I believe that it will be popular and well attended. Students are eager to participate in the activities that I am developing, with an even mix of adventure and service projects,” said BySura. “When we presented the original idea to them, we did not anticipate our enrollment would be double-digit participants. This far exceeded the numbers we originally anticipated. I think this program has a lot of potential for success at Rabun Gap Middle School in the future.”
Abe Loveland ‘25 shared, “I have never felt so included in something in my life.”
STEAM
The STEAM program, led by science teacher Ms. Nehlia McIntyre and math teacher Ms. Rachel BySura, helps students develop skills related to STEAM disciplines through a variety of inquiry-based, student-driven projects. It is open to all students and seems to be most appealing to creative students interested in engineering, technology, and art. The program empowers students to become critical thinkers, problem-solvers, and innovators. It promotes active learning because it is so student-driven, giving the students the chance to be creative and explore their own ideas.
This winter, the students put the Middle School Makerspace to use, where they try a variety of projects related to art, science, engineering, and math. They have the opportunity to learn about engineering, game design, coding, and how to properly use tools and equipment.
The students dove into several interesting projects this year during the STEAM season. They were able to build and fly drones, build birdhouses in the Upper School STEAM building, make race propeller-powered cars, among other projects. They especially enjoyed the challenge to build cardboard mazes, which took a lot of trial and error to make them both challenging and fun. After the mazes were built, they had a competition to see who could make the best one; the competition was judged by other students.
“STEAM gives students a safe place to fail forward,” said McIntyre. “I hope they learn that failing is the best part of the learning process. Overall, I think the students really enjoy it and look forward to creating and building something with their peers.”
“We did a lot of great projects in STEAM, but my favorites happened on our free days,” said Deidre Black ‘24. “We coded, we built stuff, and one day we went to the Upper School building and I built a giant wooden battle axe.”
Yearbook
The Yearbook program enables students to become record keepers for the school and to look at what happens at the Middle School from a different perspective. Many of the students who join think that they will be doing photography the whole time and are surprised to learn that it takes a lot more than just taking pictures to put together a yearbook. Humanities and French teacher Ms. Stacy Caro leads the program.
After the students take photos of life in the Middle School and at sporting events, most of their time is spent on a website that provides templates and artwork for a yearbook. They have the job of laying out photos, inserting them into pages, and writing captions. They gain skills in navigating a web program and learn patience in completing a task that can sometimes be tedious. With the experience they gain in this program, they will have no problem working on Yearbook in high school.
“I thought a 56-page yearbook would be hard to fill, but it turns out, we have been busy here in the middle school, and we could easily fill more pages,” said Caro. “I like that the students have become so invested in recording the significant events that happen at school. We would be in enrichment or chapel or a special lunch, and at least one of my Yearbook students would always remind me to get my camera and take pictures. They were always looking at events with an eye for what would be good yearbook material.”
“Yearbook was really fun and we had a lot of laughs. It was a good experience to learn how to do that kind of work,” said Emily Cox ‘23.
MATHCounts
MATHCounts is led by math teacher Ms. Carrie Kuehne. The program, which ran during our winter season, encourages the love of math in middle school students. MathCounts sparksgrowth of problem-solving skills and positive attitudes about math so that students are willing to accept challenges and improve their academic and career opportunities in the future. Students at various levels are invited to participate in the program. Regardless of their abilities, all students learn new problem-solving techniques, became more confident in their problem-solving skills, and improved their ability to communicate with each other about mathematics.
The group met after school to work on problem sets in various forms. Students were invited to go over problems and volunteers share their problem-solving techniques. It provided an incredible opportunity for students to learn from each other and find new ways to solve problems.
The top four students from the program - the two top scoring girls and two top scoring boys - were invited to attend the Northeast Georgia Regional Competition in February. Ella Loveland ‘23, Dayong Liu ‘23, Aimee Pan ‘23, and Parker Stribling ‘24 did an incredible job of representing Rabun Gap at the event. From this event, Aimee Pan qualified for the State Competition.
“I am so proud of all of the students I worked with during the MathCounts winter season. I was honored to have been their coach,” said Kuehne.
“My favorite part was getting to represent the school at the regional competition, to be able to compete for us and show what we can really do,” said Stribling.
State-qualifier Aimee Pan of China said she joined the team because she loves math. She called the competition like a “big family” and enjoyed being able to compete with her classmates.
“In the team round, we all worked together,” she said. “That was really fun because I’ve never worked together with someone on math.”
Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School
.png){kind=logo}
Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School is a private, coeducational day and boarding school for grades Pre-K through 12. Centrally located between Atlanta, GA, Greenville, SC, and Asheville, NC, we prepare young people for college, career, and a lifetime of leadership and service.
