HeadsUp! Curriculum

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The schools emphasize a balance of broad-based skills (physical, social, emotional, intellectual, creative), while building excellent technical skills in the fundamental academic areas of reading, writing, speaking, and numeracy (number literacy). They encourage the development of personal characteristics that facilitate learning: persistence, curiosity, independence, and creativity.

They also include subjects that are either non-traditional or are neglected by other schools, such as music and movement, interpersonal communications, art, human values and cultures, and practical life skills such as cooking, recycling, and first aid. Consequently, time is spent outside the classroom participating in and learning about the world. The middle-school program makes extensive use of close textual analysis of original texts and Socratic dialogue as its primary pedagogical approach. Benefits of Mixed-Age Classrooms The primary value of mixed-age programs is the flexibility they provide to students whose growth is a series of sudden spurts rather than a smooth, linear progression. By serving a range of students with a large chronological-age span, the norm becomes a wide range of abilities rather than the expectation that everyone is at the same level. A student may be ahead of or behind his chronological peers, but the classroom has teachers and materials available that are appropriate to the needs of each student, regardless of where he or she falls on the spectrum of abilities. There is no skipping or failing of grades because a student remains with his chronological peers whatever his academic needs. Furthermore, it is not unusual that a student is working quickly through one curriculum but much more slowly through another; the academic work assigned to him or her will always be at the appropriate level. The availability of a wide range of curriculum materials and the variety of teachers’ expertise allows that student to always be working at the appropriate level and not trying to keep up with, or being bored with, the level of some nonexistent, “average” student. The mixed-age classroom is like a family or the “one-room schoolhouse” of America’s frontier: the older students nurture the younger ones; in turn, the younger ones are motivated by the older ones. There is no more effective reading teacher for the new first-grader than the experienced third-grader who is showing off his skills. Positive peer pressure is a powerful influence on both the academic and social development of students. Thus, all of our preschool, lower elementary, upper elementary, and middle-school rooms span two to three years of age. The schools’ Montessori program has been updated to incorporate activities that are an integral part of modern American society and that are preparatory for further learning. The HeadsUp! Montessori approach is characterized by an open classroom filled with individual and small group work areas as well as a large central area for group circle activities. The open shelves are filled with an extensive set of unique Montessori learning materials organized by area and sequenced from most basic to more complex. In addition, there are areas for other activities, such as art, construction, and imaginative play. Every student has a private work space and his or her own personal computer.