Middle School Matters

The Mission of Portsmouth Middle School is to create a strong and safe learning environment: promote social, emotional and physical well-being and to provide opportunities for each student, to the best of their ability, to meet high academic standards, develop responsibility, and achieve the positive social values and behaviors to become productive citizens.

Congratulations to our October Students of the Month: Hannah Blickens, Jemma Otis, Weston David, Ben Holtman, Kelly Emma Easton, Reagan Brown Shea Fox, Maddison Holcomb, MIlton Xa. These students were recognized by their teachers for meeting all the expectations of our core beliefs as a school community.

We would like to move up our tryouts again to this Thursday/Friday for basketball. If you have outstanding paperwork, please make every effort to get it in by Wednesday. If your circumstances will not allow for that, please contact the main office. If you have any questions, you can email our assistant athletic director, Corey Newbury at newburyc@portsmouthschoolsri.org.

Please see the link here for sign ups for the basketball season. Students must have all of their paperwork submitted before they are eligible to try out.

Portsmouth High School will be hosting a CTE open house for 8th grade families on December 11th from 6-7:30pm. All current 8th grade students and families are invited to attend.

The November after school calendar is linked here.

There is still time to order photos in time for the Holidays! Please go to Melino-Photo.com and click on 'View My Proofs' and use your student's ID number as the online code to order today!

To keep you informed, you will receive an automated weekly email if your students has missed 10% or more days this year. These emails will be sent from Aspen and are designed to keep you informed of your child's attendance.

Take a look at the SlideDeck we used during advisory on 11/1/2024.

Ask your child if they have earned any attendance Patriot Pillars this month!

According to the State Attendance Leaderboard, Portsmouth Middle School is ranked 110th in the state. We are proud of our students who show up every day ready to learn! Let's see if we can make it in to the top 50!

Data as of 11/14/2024

Portsmouth Middle School

607 students enrolled

81 Students Chronically Absent (Missed 10%+ this school year)

526 Non-chronically absent students (Missed less than 10% this school year)

We care if your children are here!

This week all students will receive a magnetic Attendance Tracker calendar, provided by RIDE, to take home.

Use the attendance tracker as a family to celebrate your child's attendance progress. This is a great tool to ensure that students are coming to school every day, and when absent, following district procedures.

We are collecting non-perishable items through Friday!

Bring your donations to the designated drop-off area:
Grades 5/7 = Mrs. Pritchard’s office
Grades 6/8 = Mr. Marsland’s office

Currently grades 6 and 8 are in the lead! Please help support families in our community!


Items Requested:
White rice, Dry pasta and sauce, Peanut butter and jelly, Coffee, Mashed potatoes, Can corn and green beans, Pie filling, Pie crust mix, Stuffing, Turkey gravy, Cream of mushroom soup, Fried onions

Please note we will accept any non-perishable items!

Patriot Pride is a system to recognize students who are meeting our school-wide expectations. Students are eligible to be Patriot Pride winners by entering Patriot Pillars they earn in their grade level collection container. A winner from each grade level is selected daily and recognized on our school-wide morning announcements.

Students receive Patriot Pillars when they demonstrate our school core values: Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Ready to Learn.

We are proud of our Portsmouth Patriots!

Ask your students if they have earned any Patriot Pillars!

Portsmouth UMC and Calvary UMC are offering a FREE thanksgiving dinner to members of the community. The dinner will be held from 1-3pm on November 28th at 2732 East Main Road.

Military Project Information & Consent Form

Basket Raffle Letter

SmArt Gallery Contest

Jazz Band Polo's (please order by Friday, November 15)

Band/Chorus Polo's (please order by Friday, November 15)

Band Concert Announcement

Photo Club Mini Shoot

Please see the linked flier for a Photo Club Mini Shoot at PHS.

Holiday Vacation Camp

Swim Pods

Dear Rhode Island Athletic Directors:

The Rhode Island Middle School swimming is a growing sport and we wanted to invite your students to join us this winter!

We have found that introducing swimming in middle school has allowed these students to continue their experience throughout High School. It has also opened doors for swimmers to become certified lifeguards.

The Wheeler School and Pods Swimming are excited to host four meets at The Pods Swimming Aquatics Center on Saturdays in January and February. Meets will take place on the following dates:

January 11th (1:15 pm; 12 pm warmup)

January 25th (1:15 pm; 12 pm warmup)

February 1st (1:15 pm; 12 pm warmup)

February 15th (1:15 pm; 12 pm warmup)

If your middle school is interested in participating, please email Sean Kelly at seankelly@wheelergmail.org and Susan Pascale-Frechette at susan@podsswimming.com.

Additionally, there are some openings for your school to practice at Pods. If you’re interested please reach out to Susan. We are excited and hope to see your schools at Pods this winter!

Fire drills occur on a regular basis. State law requires each school to conduct eleven fire drills, two lockdown drills and two evacuation drills each year. Shelter in Place drills are conducted throughout the school year. Children are given instruction on all procedures. Students are expected to behave in a calm, orderly manner during these exercises. Please review the importance of such exercises with your child and emphasize the need for appropriate behavior.

A lockdown is an alert to a school community that students and staff should not leave the classroom and should stand and spread around the room until provided with further direction.

An evacuation requires all students and staff to exit the building and meet at a designated safe place.

A shelter in place is an alert to a school community that movement outside of classrooms is being restricted for a brief period of time. It is typically used when a student or staff member is requiring some sort of attention (sometimes medical) and the school is trying to keep that area clear and/or protect that person’s privacy. If there were a serious safety concern the school would not issue a shelter in place.

We will send notification of lockdowns, evacuations, and shelter in place drills and events via email.

Here is the presentation that was shared at a Parent Safety Forum that was hosted in conjunction with the Police and Fire Departments. The Run, Hide, Fight FBI philosophy guides our safety training.

The P3 Sandy Hook Promise Anonymous tip line is a resource that we encourage anyone to use if there is ever an immediate safety concern.

Portsmouth Youth Basketball (PYB), a non-profit organization, was formed in 2007 with the goal of teaching fundamental basketball skills to children in grades 2nd-8th in a positive environment of teamwork and sportsmanship.

Registration for the '24-'25 PYB season is now open. For those new to PYB, the recreation league practices one day a week, has games on Saturdays at the PHS field house, and will run from December to February. The divisions are broken down by school grade, Rookies are 2nd grade only and then it progresses to two-year groupings, NCAA 3rd-4th grade, Jr NBA 5th-6th grade, and NBA 7th - 8th grade. There are grade specific travel team opportunities as well. Please note that participation in the Recreation program is required to play travel. Travel is an additional program registration. For more details, please visit https://www.portsmouthyouthbasketball.com/ or contact info@portsmouthyouthbasketball.com. We hope to see you on the courts this winter!

Each week during the month of November, we are recognizing one homeroom per grade who has handed in the most Patriot Pillars.

We celebrate the homeroom on the morning announcements and a special Patriot Pride winning certificate is presented by Mr. Marsland and Mrs. Pritchard to be displayed for the week ahead!

We are proud of all students who demonstrate our core values daily!

Shout out to the following homerooms for being our Patriot Pride Winning Homerooms this week:

Grade 5: Mr. Smith

Grade 6: Mrs. Dunne

Grade 7: Mrs. Straube

Grade 8: Mrs. King

What Day is It? PMS Letter Day Calendar

District Calendar

Portsmouth Middle School Handbook

Absence Notification Form