Curriculum
School Mission
Seven Hills Classical Academy (“Seven Hills”) provides students with a classical education in an academically rigorous environment designed to promote strong citizenship and life-long learning.
Vision Statement
Recognizing that all students have a right to pursue academic and personal excellence, Seven Hills Classical Academy challenges students by:
• Providing a caring and structured small-school environment
• Maintaining high expectations of students, staff, and the community
• Inspiring critical thinking, creativity, and an appreciation for beauty through active implementation of the Core Knowledge curriculum
• Promoting a strong value system that embraces caring, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy and self-control (“CARES”)
Overview of School Programs
Seven Hills supports a rigorous, structured and disciplined academic program. All students are viewed as gifted as we seek to challenge them to the best of their individual abilities. The community will not compromise with its vision, and all staff are dedicated to bringing each child up to, and when possible, beyond grade level. Thus, embedded in its academic programming, Seven Hills has an enrichment program designed to accommodate both remediation and gifted and talented needs.
Small class size is a hallmark of the Seven Hills community as it fosters a warm and welcoming environment for all children. The schools facilitate the most effective learning environment as it supports a student to teacher ratio of 13 or 14 to 1. With the small group instruction, remediation and gifted and talented inclusion models, the administration will continue to promote the academic excellence of each child. Every student who enters the school is a valued member of the community-the school will strive to meet the needs of every child.
Moreover, as Seven Hills encourages a love of learning for its own sake, the community implements comprehensive strategies to support a positive and academically rigorous culture in all aspects of student life. Seven Hills will refuse to settle for mediocrity, be it in its programming, culture, attitudes towards student learning, or asking for effort and motivation from its students. Seven Hills sets the bar at academic excellence for all students-and will settle for nothing less!
Parental Involvement
Charter schools generally have a far higher degree of parent involvement, participation and school governance than traditional schools.
- Each charter school is a separate school district with its own board of directors and an absence of bureaucracy, depending on parent volunteers for many school functions.
- Parents are encouraged to be involved in day-to-day activities at Seven Hills and are welcome in the school and in classrooms, whether visiting or volunteering.
- Parents sit on the school's Board of Directors, and will also be asked to support the school each year by becoming members of school committees, by helping in the office, by planning school events, by chaperoning field trips, working in the classrooms, or participating in fundraising activities.
- Encouraging parents or guardians to participate in this manner underscores the importance that the Seven Hills community places on the part that a parent plays in a child's academic life. Parents will be asked to support their students' academic achievements by ensuring that they do their homework and read at home daily; by making sure they attend school except when there is an illness and ensuring the timely arrival to school in the mornings; by attending parent/teacher conferences; and by ensuring that assignments missed due to excused absences are completed in a timely manner.
- Seven Hills maintains that parental involvement empowers the parents by providing each parent and family with a greater stake in the school's success.
- Finally, parents will be asked to voluntarily sign a copy of the Family Agreement, a document designed to help ensure that parents and students understand the school's mission and the unique roles each play in ensuring that the school's vision becomes reality. It will also contain a recommended number of volunteer hours per family.
School Curricula
The critical components of Seven Hills' educational programs are described below. These may be modified or supplemented according to student needs.
Core Knowledge Scope and Sequence
Seven Hills believes that the Core Knowledge Scope and Sequence, implemented through classical instructional strategies, supports each student's ability to meet the highest of academic standards. Inspired to produce extraordinary levels of achievement, teachers work with students, from a very young age, to master basic and foundational skills and engage in-depth studies of high-interest level concepts.
The Core Knowledge Scope and Sequence holds that a grade-by-grade core of common learning is necessary to ensure a sound and fair elementary education by:
- mapping out a complete program that provides each student with a broad-based education, free of significant gaps;
- clearly defining the knowledge and skills that each student must master at each grade level to create high levels of academic expectations; and
- eliminating many of the gaps and repetition characterized in standard curriculums.
Science and Social Studies at Seven Hills follows in close alignment with the sequence of units as delineated in the Core Knowledge Scope and Sequence, and the Minnesota State standards. Relying generally on the Pearson Social Studies texts and the FOSS Science kits, teachers are able to present the most meaningful learning opportunities possible, understanding each child's learning styles, interests and ability levels.
Differences in student ability and variances in their readiness are accommodated with all of the curricular programs. Through frequent work sampling and ongoing assessments embedded within the Sequence and the reading and math programs, teachers are able to identify any student who is struggling with any part of the curriculum.
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Singapore and Saxon Math
Singapore Math: Kindergarten through 4th Grades
Singapore Math is a unique approach to teaching math that focuses on building students' problem-solving, mental math, and high-level thinking skills. By starting with the concrete then moving to the pictorial, and finishing with the abstract, Singapore Math adds greater depth to math instruction and improves students' mastery of basic math concepts.
Saxon Math: 5th Grade
Saxon Math enhances Core Knowledge through providing a solid foundation in all areas of mathematics through balancing theory with practical application and offering opportunities to address students; differing learning styles. As a result, children are able to learn at their own level and progress at their own pace. Flexible grouping according to student performance levels will enable teachers to work more closely with each individual student, and students will be accountable for their own success. Instructions are straightforward with easy access to previous lessons, opening the door to greater parental involvement.
Scholastic Guided Reading, Classical Literature and Balanced Literacy Program
Seven Hills implements the Scholastic Guided Reading Program, which is implemented in a context whereby a teacher supports each reader's development of effective strategies for processing novel texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty. The teacher works with a small group of children who demonstrate similar reading processes and are able to read similar levels of text with support. The ultimate goal in Guided Reading is to help children learn how to use independent reading strategies successfully. The Guided Reading program is aligned with Core Knowledge in that it focuses on building knowledge and greater understanding in a systematic, structured, cohesive, and consistent manner. The program further instills in the young reader a lifelong interest in reading and literature.
A. Zaner-Bloser HandWriting and Spelling
Zaner-Bloser Handwriting and Spelling uses a step-by-step approach to teaching handwriting, so that students develop a solid foundation skill that encourages and supports all of their writing, reading, spelling and assessment efforts.
B. Lucy Calkins Writer's Workshop
In Kindergarten through the second grade, Lucy Calkins Writer's Workshop is implemented featuring units of writing that are presented sequentially and take students through the process of oral and pictorial storytelling through emergent into fluent writing.
C. Teaching the Qualities of Effective Writing
In the third through fifth grades, teachers implement this writing model for evaluating writing based on four common characteristics: idea development, design, language, and presentation that is infused with voice:
- Students learn how to include rich content in their writing by including examples, elaboration, events, evidence, and background information.
- Students receive instruction in the organization of narrative, expository, and creative writing using thesis statements, topic sentences, outlines, and notes.
- Students develop writing styles which indicate the audience and tone of the author.
- Students learn how to complete final drafts through the revision and editing process which emphasizes correct punctuation, spelling, grammar and usage, capitalization, and paragraphing.
D. Grammar
Shurely English: 1st through 4th Grades
Shurely English Sequentially oriented curriculum that incorporates the use of rhythm, repetition and student teacher interaction in teaching all aspects of grammar, incorporating Minnesota State Standards.
Junior Analytical Grammar: 5th Grade
Junior Analytical Grammar incorporates the instruction of all parts of speech and parts of sentences in classic sentence diagramming. There is a focus on skills' practice, short writing activities that reinforce concepts and assessments to evaluate student progress.
E. Classical Literature
The school's mission and vision statements contemplate in-depth studies, as appropriate at each grade level, of the volumes of classical literature comprising a stat-of-the-art Core Knowledge library including original texts such as the Declaration of Independence. Literature in a fully integrated classroom supplements the Core Knowledge sequence and dove-tails with the Scholastic Guided Reading program.
Music and Visual Arts
Music and the arts are essential complements to both our greater vision and the Core Knowledge Scope and Sequence. An early introduction to the arts provide Seven Hills students with opportunities to sing, dance, listen and act in an atmosphere that encourages greater participation. Seven Hills music and visual arts programs impact the academic achievement, high level thinking, and well rounded nature of Seven Hills students.
Latin and Spanish Instruction
Core Knowledge holds that early elementary education is the best time to introduce the study of language structures. Language structures in turn serve as the foundation for understanding the complex vocabulary, concepts, and paradigms of more advanced studies. A full immersion Spanish program is presented to the children in all grades for the 2008-09 academic year. As part of their literacy program, 4th and 5th graders study Latin. Extensive research led to the Seven Hills decision to introduce Latin to students in the 4th grade. The schools' Latin program is content rich, drawing from the cultural influences, texts, and history which shaped the language.
Character Development
Seven Hills is not only committed to academic excellence, but to ethical standards-including our core virtues of Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self-Control. Seven Hills students and teachers call these our C.A.R.E.S rules and practice applying these characteristics in our daily lives. Additionally, Seven Hills adopts the CORE Virtues program of: respect, compassion, courage, diligence, patience, responsibility and perseverance, closely aligning with the Core Knowledge Scope and Sequence. At Seven Hills, the community holds that, through great children's literature, students can effectively learn core virtues.
Classical Education
Seven Hills Classical Academy provides students with a classical education in an academically rigorous environment designed to promote strong citizenship and life-long learning. Learn More >>>