Grade nine students come to high school ready for the important challenge of passing through adolescence to adulthood, preparing themselves for a successful entrance into the post-high school world of higher education, job and career commitment, and social maturity. Our program for ninth graders is designed to prepare students for success in the intellectual, social, and physical domains of adulthood.
In our Foundation for Academic Excellence Program, we provide ninth grade students who have just exited their middle school as young teenagers, with what we consider the fundamental intellectual and learning tools to succeed academically in all areas of their high school experience. They will acquire skills, content knowledge, and intellectual acumen to master intensive blocks of advanced level subject area instruction.
The Foundation for Academic Excellence Program provides students with a rigorous offering in math, English, science, and social studies that infuses technology into the curriculum, allowing for a greater and more robust academic experience for all students. The program provides for Advanced Placement, intensified and regular level sections of English 9, World History, Biology, and mathematics. The houses also offer co-taught sections of core courses to accommodate the learning needs of special education students.
Program Characteristics
Personalized Instruction
Students are grouped into academic teams, or “Houses”, for a portion of their school day. They are taught by a team of teachers who get to know each student. The teachers are able to differentiate instruction and provide enrichment, remediation, and acceleration as appropriate.
Interdisciplinary Learning
The House organization allows for the team of teachers to plan together and develop interdisciplinary units. These units allow students to see connections between content areas and transfer knowledge and learning to real life experiences. Technology is taught as a tool to support learning in all areas.
Student Responsibility for Learning
Students acquire the skills and intellectual tools to learn to take responsibility for their own learning, to develop confidence in their own growing abilities to set personal goals, and to manage time and commitments to meet these goals. They also begin to establish long-term goals in post-high school and career plans.
Student Assessment
All students are expected to demonstrate mastery of the four core areas (English, mathematics, science, and social studies) as specified by the curriculum objectives for each subject based on APS curricula and Virginia Standards of Learning. Forms of assessment include traditional tests, daily assignments, exhibits, group and individual projects, and interdisciplinary multi-media presentations.
Student progress is monitored on a continual basis by each teacher in the house and reviewed with the student. At the mid-term of the second marking period, each student is assigned a parent-student-teacher conference appointment during the Foundation Program conference day. This provides parents and students with an overview of achievement during the first semester, goals for the second semester, and answers to questions concerning course selection for the tenth grade. Additional opportunities for conferences are provided during the year as needed.
Instruction
Curriculum
The county-approved curriculum is followed in the core subjects of science, (Biology, Intensified Biology, or Immersion Intensified Biology), English (English 9 or English 9 Intensified), and social studies (World History 1500 to the present or Intensified World History 1500 to the present). Students who enter Grade 9 ready to take AP World History may take the class(es) out of the House. Math classes for our ninth-grade students are cross-housed, meaning there are students from more than one House in the math classes.
Students receive a MacBook Air in the beginning of the school year and are exposed to a variety of computer programs and applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, databases, publishing, graphics, web page creation, and visual basic programming. Students also learn how to use audio, visual, and video technology to design presentations.
Gifted Differentiation
The curriculum presented in all intensified and upper-level courses include explicit and extended instruction in creative and critical thinking, problem solving, seminar discussion skills and research methods. The pacing of instruction and the expectations of performance are aimed to meet the intellectual aptitude of the gifted student.
Acceleration/Remediation
Each house operates in a flexible and differentiated manner which facilitates varied levels of learning. Opportunities for advanced learning are provided to students as they demonstrate need and desire. Grouping within the House exists to accommodate students who demonstrate their readiness for an accelerated program. The House structure provides differentiated opportunities for student support through individual remediation and strengthening.
Special Education Students
The Foundation Program includes opportunities for inclusion of Special Education students.
Organization and Schedule
- Each House has a team of core teachers and a counselor(s) who share the same group of students.
- Each House includes students who are identified for gifted services, students who receive Special Education services, and students who are English Language Learners.
- Students take their math and elective classes out of the House. These electives include Health and PE I, world language courses, and fine and performing arts.