Curriculum Development

Calvert's expert curriculum team is a comprised of career professional teachers. They devote considerable effort to researching and evaluating instructional materials and textbooks from major educational publishers.  Materials that meet our high standards may be selected for use in the Calvert program. In addition, the curriculum team develops original textbooks and materials as needed to present a comprehensive world class curriculum at each grade level.  Beyond the selection process, the curriculum team works diligently to integrate subjects and concepts across the curriculum.

The foundation of the Calvert experience is the high-quality, research-based, and standards-aligned curriculum.  Calvert has adopted textbooks from renowned national publishers such as Houghton Mifflin, Macmillan/McGraw Hill and Prentice Hall as the foundation for the content in Science, History, Geography, and Grades K-3 Reading courses.  The daily lessons are written by Calvert teachers and curriculum specialists to support a one-on-one teacher-student relationship.

The Calvert program is built on a rich foundation of reading, writing, and arithmetic. That foundation is then layered with history, science, music, geography, and the arts to ensure no gaps in instruction.  In a time when reading and mathematics seem to be the focus, often at the expense of other subjects, this point is significant. Reading and writing strategies are applied, reinforced, and enriched in the other content areas. This reinforced study across subject areas develops higher order thinking skills, promotes content mastery, and helps to develop the whole child.

Building upon the core of the rigorous Calvert curriculum-fundamentals of reading, composition writing, arithmetic, critical thinking, and arts and sciences-students employ specific skills that are meaningful in today's academic environment. Through collaborative learning, leadership development, and increased technological application, students receive the skills they need to succeed in a present-day economy. Calvert combines proven and rigorous print-based curriculum, technology delivered instructional experiences, the supervision of a professional teacher and high expectations to deliver an experience that will enable your students to realize a future empowered by a successful education.

To help the students learn the required content, the Calvert education program uses a blend of traditional and 21^st century learning tools and teaching techniques including direct instruction, hands-on exploration, online learning, and use of learning games.  Each lesson provides a clearly defined list of materials to prepare and gather, a checklist of daily assignments to assist with organization, standards-based daily learning objectives, background information, step-by-step procedures for instructional activities, and creative ideas for alternative approaches and enrichment.