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Manhattan Academy’s Preparatory School serves two functions: to provide elementary and middle school-level curriculum for the students’ current educational instruction and also to provide an environment that helps prepare them for what lies ahead in high school and college.
A large part of that is time management. Students are given a wide variety of assignments, increasing in number as the student ages, which require completion in a day, a week, or a month or two. Each time the student is taught how to use the tools of time management to complete the task successfully without undue stress.
The Academy curriculum includes the four core subject areas of Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social studies. Additionally, the student has classes in Computer Technology, Spanish language, Physical Education, Vocal Music, and Visual Art.
At the start of each school year, the Preparatory staff reviews the students’ Stanford standardized testing results from the previous spring. That allows them, while following a general curriculum appropriate for each grade level, to add individualized tutoring as needed. For example, a student may have excellent spelling skills in the area of Language Arts but the detailed standardized testing report available to the staff indicates that a particular student is still struggling with understanding synonyms and homophones. Additional time can be spent helping that student better understand that minute piece of the overall Language Arts curriculum.
At the start of each school year, each Preparatory student is also assessed in math. Regardless of age or general grade level, the student will be placed in the appropriate math class. It is important to note that because the majority of students come from our own Montessori classrooms the level of understanding in math is quite high. Therefore, each class automatically works one grade level above in math. For example, those in E3, are of third grade age, but use a 4th grade math textbook. Then, in addition to that, should a child need to be moved to either a higher or lower math group, such movement is handled. Math, like science, builds and expands on the knowledge previously presented. Therefore it is critical there be no “holes” in understanding; a solid foundation is required for later math studies at the high school and college level.
We pride ourselves in constantly updating our textbooks to the latest versions, adding materials to our science lab, as well as expanding our physical education equipment. We are in the process of building our second computer lab for these older students and expanding the school library and reference materials.
We are often asked why our elementary and middle school classes are not “Montessori”. Unfortunately the world is not “Montessori”. The students, whenever they leave here, will face other schools with textbooks, rigorous testing schedules, multiple projects, and more. We want to prepare them. We therefore use many of the same textbooks that other local public and private schools in the South Bay use. We however supplement extensively through field trips, hands-on labs, individual and group projects, and requiring the students to present their work several times a year to the parent body of the school. No boring book report here; you will learn through our students’ PowerPoint presentations – and that’s even by our youngest elementary students!
We do keep a Montessori “philosophy” at the elementary and middle school grade level. We achieve that through our PeaceWorks, which is our character building curriculum that emphasizes, just as Dr. Montessori did, that we each have a responsibility to care for our fellow man. The children have specific Community Service Days each school year where you may find them singing in a retirement home, playing bingo at the senior citizens center, shipping books to a disadvantaged school or collecting canned goods for local food banks. The students themselves often bring ideas to their teachers of how to help make this a better world. We also involve the children in our “green program”. Our new campus, which will open in the fall of 2009, will be “all green”. The students will have a large responsibility in learning the benefits of recycling, composting, and protecting mother earth.
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