Messages from the Secondary Principal and Director of Learning & Teaching

  Monday, April 29 Curriculum Review: The ES Team continues to work diligently to redevelop our Social Studies and Science Units of Investigation for the year 2024-2025. This work exemplifies collaboration and the positive results it yields. Teachers are putting great thought into developing Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions that drive the development of the learning experiences. The curriculum review for our Secondary School is offering opportunities to change existing offerings and/or provide new offerings. This is an important process during which we must meticulously consider all options, including the addition of AP courses, as well as new iterations of existing courses.  Policies and Practices: The Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) met on Tuesday to review the draft of the school’s first Language Policy, which we expect to release within the next two weeks. The ILT also began a thorough review of our Assessment Handbook, which will continue through to the...

  Monday, April 22 Curriculum Review: Our curriculum review process continued last week with extended meetings for SS Science,  Fine Arts, Performing Arts, and for ES Social Studies. The Science Team has created a shared document aimed at assisting us in the ability to see the Science continuum from grade 6 through grade 12. The team members who attended the AMISA Educators’ Conference in March shared their key takeaways with the group and the team began to look at the Next Generation Science Standards together. This process helps ensure common understanding of the standards and is the first step in identifying where we may need to implement changes. Fine and Performing Arts teachers began a collaborative review of the National Core Arts Standards, with the same objective in mind: to ensure common understanding of the standards, how we use standards to develop units, and how we develop multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery. The ES team of teachers continue...

Monday, April 15 Curriculum Review: Our curriculum review process continued last week with extended meetings for SS English and Freshman Seminar. Our English department made significant progress in sharing and documenting approaches to vocabulary, grammar, reading, and writing. This work is essential for ensuring alignment across our programs. The content of Freshman Seminar is fundamental for supporting our students in their transition to high school. Our rising 9th graders will experience a revamped and refreshed course for the 2024-2025 school year. Please be sure to watch for the updated course description.  On Wednesday the ES faculty made great strides in unit development for the 2024-2025 school year. Our aim is to provide our teachers with ample time to plan new units that target multiple disciplines and are inquiry-driven. We are ensuring that all teachers have thorough understanding of the standards and performance indicators and that learning engagements and assessments...

Curriculum Review: Earlier this year we established a school-wide Curriculum Review process that continues to forge ahead. The first stage involves the review of the content we teach in all courses and its documentation. Last week ES Social Studies,  SS Social Studies, and World Languages teachers met in their respective teams to continue the review of the written curriculum. Social Studies : Using the AERO and C3 Social Studies frameworks, we are redeveloping Social Studies units of study in the ES, and course content and/or offerings in the SS for the 2024-2025 school year. The unit and/or course descriptions will be shared with the community prior to the beginning of the next  school year.  World Languages (WL):  Using frameworks from the MOE, ACTFL, CCSS, and national standards from Colombia, the WL department is developing learning outcome expectations for our K-12 Spanish program. We will continue to use Santillana as a primary resource and have partnered with ...

  Thank you for joining us on Friday morning.  The recording of the presentation can be accessed here .