Valley Transitional Middle School

The Valley Middle School is a small and supportive environment which fosters students’ learning through a tailored, therapeutic approach in order to meet each student’s individual needs. The Transitional Program is rich with trained professionals, and through innovative programming, helps to empower students to discover their individual strengths, interests and abilities. The Middle School curriculum is aligned with the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and the Common Core Standards. Students are motivated and engaged through small class sizes, the use of technology, and differentiated and multimodal instruction.

The Transitional Program within the Valley Collaborative Middle School provides services designed to meet the needs of students diagnosed not only with autism, but also students who need similar support due to issues with pragmatic and sensory needs, as well as a range of cognitive abilities and language needs.

The classroom provides consistency, positive reinforcement, predictability, visuals, data driven decisions and individualized behavior support plans, as needed. It is Valley's goal to provide each student with frequent and personally meaningful reinforcement, critical to sustaining motivation. Through a supportive therapeutic environment, accommodations and modifications are in place for students to be able to access the curriculum and make effective progress on a consistent basis.  Generalization is extremely important and students are provided every opportunity to practice learned skills in a variety of environments. Our mission is to build a safe, respectful and responsible community.

Students receive instruction in literacy, math, language and writing, content areas such as science or social studies with a focus on functionality of skills. We have a variety of curricula to address all students’ needs. The curriculum utilizes a teaching approach based on the principles of direct instruction, task analysis, integrated therapy techniques and hands on experiences. Some of our students are ready to participate in more typical classroom curriculum and that is readily available to all students. 

Our program has a wealth of therapists to assist our students and train our staff in the most current research-based intervention strategies. Our integrated therapy approach provides Board Certified Behavior Analysts, Speech/Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and Social Workers that work with the classroom staff to ensure the student’s range of needs are met.