My designed school name is STEPPING STONES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL and it will run from Pre-K to 3rd grade with 300 students in total. I want to have 1 teacher and 1 assistant per classroom with 20 students per class. The students I want my school to serve are low income to middle class students. I want to have students that have had a tough childhood to help them in every way we can. My school will be extremely welcoming to homeless children, foster care children, newcomers from other countries. The students in the school will be from ages 3 to 9, it will be a boys and girls school and every religion, culture and nationality is more than welcomed. My school will be located in Queens and will provide my students with school buses to and from their homes. Textbooks and school supplies will be provided for families who cannot afford it and free breakfast and lunch is provided for all students. My school will have a full staff with a school guidance counselor, social worker, nurse, librian, gym teachers, many different arts teachers, diverse language teachers, science teacher, social studies teacher, crossing guards, and tutors.
The mission statement of STEPPING STONES ELEMENTARY is “We all learn at our own rhythm in time our full potential will shine.” This is what my school is all about teaching every student in the way they learn best with whichever learning style works for them. We never let an child fall back because they do not understand we always push them to further themselves. Students have to learn they are not all the same and therefore they will learn in different paces some will learn quicker than other some may need more time to understand and it's fine. Every single one of them is smart it'll just take time for them to understand. Failure is not an option in STEPPING STONES ELEMENTARY only making our futures brighter.
The theme of my schools is the arts; dancing, music, drama, creative activity, etc. All lesson plans will include the arts in some way and students will also have art, dance, drama, music, acting, painting, pottery, computer, drawing and any other arts related class twice a week and they will have physical education once a week. Also the classes will be bilingual in the languages that are less common in the classroom. So the language that is least spoken in class for example it could be French if nobody speaks French that’s the language that certain class will be learning giving them an opportunity to learn about other cultures. The arts, cultures and ethnicities will be a huge influence in the school. Hallways and classrooms will have work on the walls for every holiday the students celebrate, art work they have done, and stories or narratives they have wrote. The halls will never look dull it will always display the amazing work the students do in the school.
The teachers in my school have to be passionate about teaching, friendly, communicate effectively with every parent and most importantly care about all the students. I want the teachers to have great relationship with the parents, I want them to be able to contact them immediately through a phone call or email in any situation; good or bad. The parents and teachers should not be afraid to contact each other and they should keep in touch regarding the students progress in school once a month. Every meeting or talk they have I want it to be mandatory for them to have everything written down and both the teacher and parents have to sign what they spoke about and what there going to do to change the situation so there could be evidence in writing if they ever need it at the end of the year. I want the teachers to be able to hold a student back if they really feel the student is not ready to move onto the next grade for the students own good because then they'll be moving on with every year being harder for them. The teachers will have to teach with the different types of learning styles to find which way works best for each individual student. I want every student in my school to have a chance to receive the best education they can. They will have to accommodate their lesson plans for every student whether they are visual learners students that prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding, aural for students who prefer using sound and music, verbal for students who prefer using words, both in speech and writing, physical for students who prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch, logical for students who prefer using logic, reasoning and systems, social for students who prefer to learn in groups or with other people and solitary for students who prefer to work alone and use self-study. No student should be left behind because he does not understand there's many different ways of explaining something. Teachers have to include the arts in every lesson plan. In math they can use music and art to help teach patterns and shapes. In literacy they can use drama, dance, and acting to perform plays or interpret readings. They can be as creative as they want with their lesson plans to keep students engaged.
My school's curriculum for Pre-K students is for them to know basic concepts first such as shapes, letters, numbers and colors. I will also have them learn how to write their names and basic words. They will be able to identify sight words and read sight word books. Students will learn to share, manners and most importantly respect. Also they will have 100 index cards of words they should know and identify once the school year is over. expected to read words by the end of the school year. They also learn to print letters. The curriculum for Kindergarten is write the alphabet in both capital and lowercase letter and maybe even introduce script as an extra credit, so they can learn how to write in script because many schools do not teach it anymore. They will know their full name, home phone number and home address for their safety if they ever get lost. Students should know by know how to use scissors, glue, crayons, and pencils on their own. They will also try to write stories, journal entries and poems weekly as challenges, the higher they write the higher price ranges they can get on Fridays. They will learn to work with blocks and use colors and shapes in math problems together. Student will now have homework daily and less play time because they need to prepare for 1st grade. The 1st grade math curriculum is to learn to count by 2s, 5s, and 10s, and know 2 and 3 dimensional geometric shapes. They will also learn how to tell time and solve time problems. Teachers will have small paper clocks where they can move the hands for students to identify the time in problems. Students will also learn about money and solve math problems involving money. For lessons like this teacher will have fake money to help students solve the problems. Students will learn how to read and write more fluently and learn how to spell. They are now able to write stories, poems and daily journal entries on their own. The 2nd grade math curriculum is students learning how to add and subtract double digit numbers to prepare them for 3rd grade multiplication and division problems. If they seem to understand math well the teachers may teach them the first 5 times table. They will also learn about odd and even numbers. Students now will know how to write full sentences and form paragraphs, they will learn how write mini essays. They will have classroom activities of writing narratives and how to books. The 3rd grade curriculum is the most difficult one. Students work with larger numbers, fractions and decimal numbers. They’ll learn to solve and explain addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems. Now students will do more math work on paper and in their heads, instead of with chips and blocks.
The educational needs of the students in my school are students that need an extra hand while there learning. They won't learn something right away so they need someone to explain it every way possible and not just rush through something. They are students who come from other countries or unstable families who don't have support for their education at home so it's our job to help them the best we can. The school will provide after school programs, after school tutoring, Saturday camp from 8am-12pm where we provide students with lunch and there is many different arts stations and different cultural station also where you learn and participate in activities. We will also have many PTA meeting for parents to be informed with school events. Once a month will have a movie night, or a talent show, or some event to bring parents and students together in school.
Upon graduation the skillsets the students are required to have is to be able to read and write at 3rd grade level because that's the last grade my school has. They have to know grammar, spelling and punctuation they have learned while in school. They have to be able to do math without a calculator like multiplication, division, addition, subtraction and solve fractions. Students must be able to solve equations and two-step word problems along with reading and write large numbers like hundred thousand and knowing the place value for each digit. Most importantly they should graduate knowing they are smart and capable of doing anything and knowing what their individual learning style is to be able to apply in other schools. They should leave knowing learning can be fun when you incorporate the arts and cultural.
Since my school is about helping lower income families in any way we need a lot of support from organizations to help fund the school. One organization that I would work with is First Book, it's a nonprofit organization from Washington D.C. that aims to provide children from low-income families with quality reading materials. This would help me have up to date textbooks and many books for the students to take home daily to read to improve their reading fluency. I would also work with New York Cares because they provide many activities for the schools. They have a program called math games where volunteer get paired with a student and create fun board games, cards games, many interactive games to get students excited about math. They also have a program called Performing arts where volunteers work with students in improvisation, performance skills, playwriting and choreography. Lastly they have an amazing program called Urban adventures where they help us take low-income and homeless children on monthly trips, such as rock climbing, ice skating, bowling, visiting museums and more many trips the school wouldn't be able to afford without such a great organization.