Westbrook Middle School Portrait of a Graduate

Welcome to the Westbrook Middle School Portrait of a Graduate page!  This page will provide updated information on the work at our middle school to fully integrate the  PoG priority attributes and skills in our day to day classroom lessons.  In addition, this page will communicate and celebrate our signature programs aligned to the Westbrook Portrait of a Graduate: WMS School-Wide Reads, Discovery Projects Knight Talks, Logic Block, and the WMS PoG Block.

WMS Westbrook Portrait of a Graduate ongoing goals and focus:

• align learning experiences inside and outside the classroom with PoG skills and attributes;
• create authentic, developmental opportunities to explicitly teach the skills and attributes; and
• adopt the language of the PoG into the academic, social, and emotional vernacular at the middle school.

Signature WMS Portrait of a Graduation Programs and Initiatives to help our students grow in these critical skills and attributes:

Westbrook PoG Block at WMS

Each Wednesday, 25 minutes of the school day is dedicated to the Portrait of a Graduate.  During that 25 minutes, students engage in sustained reading, Logic Block, the School-Wide Read or Discovery Projects.  This time is dedicated to student progression on the PoG continuum.

Logic Block

Created and maintained by faculty member Ms. Fredrickson, Logic Block is a monthly problem-solving experience where kids must flex their Portrait of a Graduate muscles to work through a variety of mental and physical obstacles.  Students are put into social situations where they must think critically, collaborate, and persevere to negotiate fun, tricky situations.

School-wide Reads

Annually, the middle school participates in a school-wide read.   WMS leverages powerful literature to assist in the development of the skills and attributes outlined in Westbrook’s Portrait of a Graduate.  All middle school students and staff read, discuss and learn about how the various themes covered in the book coincide with the skills and attributes outlined in PoG.  As the school reads together, students use the skills and attributes of the Portrait of a Graduate to act as catalysts for discussion and processing.  

Discovery Projects and Knight Talks

In its second year of implementation, students embarked on a new journey of discovery this year through WMS Discovery Projects – a process of self-guided exploration and an opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding and growth in our PoG skills and attributes..  For nine weeks, students systematically explored the essential question, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’  They answer this important question using the Japanese concept of Ikigai as their guide.  Ikigai can best be described as a motivating force that gives a person a sense of purpose or a reason for living – something that brings pleasure or fulfillment.  Students explore the confluence of the following: what they are passionate about, what they are good at, what the world needs, and for what they can be compensated.  The purpose of this project is to get students thinking about life beyond school, to facilitate alignment with the high school’s career pathways program, to expose students to new ideas and occupations and to continue students along the growth continuum.