Department of Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment
Our Curriculum
The Provident Charter School curriculum stems from Pennsylvania Core standards that guide academic instruction in all content areas and at multiple levels. Provident Charter School strives to continuously strengthen and enhance curriculum, instruction, and assessment to enable students to be:
- intellectually, physically, and emotionally healthy individuals;
- engaged, responsible, and informed citizens capable of considering multiple perspectives;
- college and career-ready with a deep understanding of the soft skills necessary to collaborate effectively in an increasingly interdependent world;
- able to demonstrate perseverance, compassion, and self-control in pursuit of lifelong learning and growth.
Our Process
Concepts, competencies, and enduring understandings are applied to real-world problems
Concepts, competencies, and enduring understandings are formatively assessed using PA Core standards, criteria, and a variety of formal and informal strategies
The coherence of disciplinary enduring understandings and a culture supporting high expectations is consistent among all grade levels
Concepts, competencies, and enduring understandings are applied to real-world problem opportunities for students to engage in higher-order thinking are present throughout instructions
Deep understanding and progression toward mastery of critical disciplinary concepts and competencies are demonstrated
Elementary School
At Provident Charter School, our 2nd and 3rd-grade classroom teachers focus on all core subjects, allowing our teachers to develop strong, supportive relationships with our youngest students. This structure allows our teachers to be diagnostic in their approach to designing instruction based on students’ needs. Most classes have 12 -14 students with two co-teachers. Our 4th and 5th-grade classrooms are departmentalized, with teaching teams of 2 co-teachers specializing in math/science and 2 co-teachers specializing in English language arts and social studies. This structure allows teachers to dive deeply into their content, focusing on the hierarchy of concepts within their disciplines.
The elementary school curriculum includes daily, explicit, multimodal language instruction, developmental writing, reading and comprehension, math, science, social studies, and social-emotional learning. In grades 2-3, science and social studies instruction alternate in four-week cycles. In grades 4-5, science has a dedicated instructional block, and social studies alternate with our research-based academic language program, Word Generation Vocabulary. Our social-emotional program is aligned with CASEL standards and is designed to help students build the necessary soft skills to be successful in the classroom. In addition to our core academic program, elementary students receive 60 minutes daily of WIN, or “What I Need” time. The WIN structure provides teachers with the necessary time to deliver customized math and reading instruction to meet individual students’ needs in homogeneous small groups.
Elementary students participate in a variety of related arts including music, art, digital media literacy, and 3D design. Students also participate in physical education and our Tae Kwon Do program two times per week.
The goal of the elementary school program is to remediate foundational academic skills in reading and math, so that students may build upon their strengths in each discipline. This is accomplished with an understanding that multisensory instruction is essential in meeting every student’s individual needs.