Inaugural Middle School Explore Week exposes students to new interests and ideas

2025-26 has brought lots of change to the halls of ASL’s Middle School. Erica Jones, who had served as assistant principal of the division since the 2018-19 school year, became principal, while Alison Muthig, a former science teacher, stepped into the assistant principal role. “When I was assistant principal, we did a lot of work with our department heads around opportunities to provide more choice for students; more of a voice within their schedules. We were also talking about a desire to innovate, and to do some more disciplinary work,” Erica reflects. 

“It’s Alison and my first year: we could have waited, but we really wanted to innovate and try something new,” says Erica. “The energy was behind Explore Week, and I think it’s been very generative for teachers.”

A committee was put together under Alison’s leadership, bringing together teachers who each contributed to different behind-the-scenes aspects of making Explore Week—held on Thursday and Friday, 26 and 27 March 2026—happen.

“Over the past few years, two of the goals in the Middle School have been focused around ‘Respect’ and ‘Explorer’: both traits that are connected to our Portrait of a Learner,” says Corey Rubel, who teaches middle school performing arts and served on the founding Explore Week committee. “As curricular department chairs and leaders within the Middle School, we’ve been thinking a lot about how we could create something around this idea of ‘Explorer.’”

Corey, along with the rest of the planning committee, asked: “What is an experience we can create where we not only have student voices involved in what they are exploring—but where, in our schedule, we can make it happen?” With High School students travelling across the UK and around the world, ASL’s campus suddenly opened up, allowing for dozens of new and engaging on-campus activities, alongside several off-campus experiences across London.

Ben Ruffolo, Grade 8 science teacher, says, “It was awesome to see the students mingle across grade levels, and experience a spark of curiosity with a new topic. I think there has been a conscious effort in the Middle School to make more of our activities more cohesive, and to focus on the Portrait of a Learner.”

Ben spent part of Explore Week teaching students to take photographs using pinhole cameras—made from simple coffee cans—and to develop their work in the photography studio’s dark room.

Corey, meanwhile, spent a full day helping students conceive, compose, and perform an entirely original musical in just six hours. The following day, he led 80-minute “taster” DJ workshops.

Erica chaperoned one of Explore Week’s many off-campus activities, helping to lead a street art and graffiti tour of East London before bringing students to the Shoreditch offices of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), this year’s ASL Innovator-in-Residence.

“The Social Justice Council had been thinking about the mural in the Middle School stairway,” Erica explains, “and how to redesign it to better reflect where we are now as a school.” The goal of the East London trip, designed by Middle School Community Action Integrationist Sean Ross, was to inspire students through London’s street art—considering how artists create murals and the stories they tell—before bringing them to see the Innovator-in-Residence firm (renowned designers themselves!) in action.

“We got to visit the office, and then ZHA came to campus the next day to run a workshop with students,” Erica adds. The middle schoolers have just begun an iterative mural redesign process with the help of ZHA’s experts. “They talked about giving us feedback on student designs, with the idea that we will eventually redo the mural,” Erica explains.

Back on campus, Joe Harris, ASL’s media technician, led a two-day documentary filmmaking experience focused on Explore Week itself. Students moved across campus for a day and a half, interviewing peers and teachers with film equipment and microphones before learning editing techniques, Friday afternoon, to bring their work together.

Dream, a Grade 5 student documentarian, has long been interested in photography and recording. “I’ve made documentaries at home about my neighborhood, but I didn’t really share those,” she says. During her Explore Week filmmaking experience, she says, “I’ve seen a lot of new people and activities. The coolest one to record was maybe the knitting activity—there was a lot going on, and they were very kind.”

Callum, a Grade 7 student, also embraced the opportunity. “I chose this activity because I thought it would be interesting to go all over the school and get people’s opinions about what they think and what they’ve enjoyed about Explore Week so far.” Micho, a Grade 6 filmmaker, especially enjoyed learning how to edit. His favorite session to film? A sports broadcasting activity: “They get to play basketball.”