Description of the structure of my k-8 experience

I started out my school experience at St. Theresa of Avila school. St. Theresa's accommodated grades k-8, all of which I attended. It was a small catholic school, between 20 and 40 children in each grade. Class size was usually around 20 per classroom, so each grade had 1 or 2 classes, depending on the need. By the time my middle school years came, my class had about 22 children and 1 class. Although there was no part of the school that was referred to as "middle school", here where a few things that changed in sixth grade that distinguished 7-8 from k-6. Most notably, we began to change classes for our different core subjects. You still had your homeroom teacher, which changed each year, but now you had separate teachers for Social Studies, Science, English/Literature, and Mathematics. Because it was a small school, the different core teachers were responsible for both grades. This was nice because you already knew all of your teachers when you began eighth grade, and you were well prepared for the new curriculum. The bad side was that if you had a teacher that you were not crazy about, you were stuck with them. I guess I was lucky because I really liked 3 out of my 4 teachers, and the other one, well she wasn't terrible. The other change that we were really proud of, was that we were given more freedom to move around the school without our teachers. Up until the start of seventh grade, if we had a special period ( Gym, Music, etc.), or Lunch, our teacher would walk us there as a class. Once we were in seventh grade, we changed classes ourselves. All of the core classes were in the same section of the building, but all of our extra classes were spread out over the whole building. The building was shaped like the letter U and had three floors. We even got to walk across the parking lot to church by ourselves. We sure did think we were cool. I mean, when you go to a small school, and you have been watching the "big kids" doing their thing since you were in kindergarten, you feel really grown-up when you are finally one to those "big kids." What can I say, small school, not very much excitement going on. We got our thrills were we could. We were a close knit group of kids, although we all had our little groups, and it was kind of sad when we all graduated and went of to our separate high schools.
The next part of my schooling took place at N.H. Jr. High. The school consisted of grades 7-9, but I didn't go there until ninth grade. Ninth grade is not typically considered middle school, but that was the way that it was organized in my school district. The school ended up being fine, but the transition was hard because everyone already knew each other and had been together for at least two years. Also the class was huge, about 300 students in the ninth grade, and it was a bit overwhelming. The school was run more like a high school than a middle school. And I thought we had freedom at St. T's because we could walk to classes by ourselves.