BRAINTREE -- Reading's Austin Prep has been named a School of Distinction by the Association for Middle Level Education, becoming the first private school in New England and the first Catholic school in the U.S. to receive the honor.

"Our Catholic identity is inseparable from who we are as a community and how we educate students," Austin Prep Head of Middle School Michael McLaughlin told The Pilot.

AMLE is an international association for middle-grade education with 30,000 members in 48 countries. It is the only international educational association in the world dedicated to the teaching of middle schoolers. Austin Prep serves grades six-12. Its middle school, comprising grades six-eight, has an enrollment between 190 and 210 students at any given time.

"This size allows us to offer the robust academic, athletic, and arts resources of a larger institution while preserving a tight-knit, school-within-a-school environment, where every student is individually known and benefits from an average class size of 15," McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin said that AMLE named Austin Prep a School of Distinction due to its Augustinian tradition of unity ("Unitas"), charity ("Caritas"), and hands-on education ("Veritas"). The curriculum combines faith and reason, encouraging students to think critically and work independently. Middle schoolers do projects putting them in the role of scientists and museum curators, write their own novels, and participate in mock trials.

"Gospel values aren't just taught in theology class," he said. "They are the standard for how students treat one another in the dining hall, on the athletic fields, and on stage."

He said AMLE was particularly impressed by the school's advisory program, in which groups of 10 middle schoolers meet with a staff member four times a week for intellectual and emotional formation. AMLE featured the program in its handbook as an example for other schools to follow.

"Middle school can easily become a time of isolation and social anxiety," McLaughlin said. "We counter that by designing structures, like our advisory program and traditions, where every single student feels connected to a community."

The advisor serves as a bridge between students' home and school lives, and over time becomes like a student's "family," McLaughlin explained. As an advisor himself, he has seen his students become more confident and thoughtful from sixth grade to eighth.

"It keeps you empathetic and deeply grounded in the reality of what it feels like to grow up today," he said.

This fall, McLaughlin and Assistant Dean of Student Life Alicia Varraso will present Austin Prep's educational model at the AMLE National Conference in Nashville. McLaughlin said his message at the conference will be that "Middle school cannot be treated as a waiting room for high school."

"At Austin Prep, our model honors that reality," he said. "It's not just about who students are becoming, it is also who they are right now, and the heart of how we make that operational is through our mission-centered advisory programs."