The New Schedule
We're sure many of you are wondering...what's going on with this new schedule in the Lower School? Why the six day rotation? Why do the letters go backwards alphabetically instead of forwards? Why don't we start on an A day? We're anticipating these questions because we've asked them ourselves!
For a number of years Lower School teachers have been asking for a new schedule. The primary reason we felt we needed one is the same reason we decided to build a new building: the kind of learning experiences we want our students engaged in requires time and space. If we are going to hold the expectation that students pose questions and pursue them through collaboration, project work, research, tinkering and fine-tuning, we need both blocks of time and physical spaces that enable that to happen.
When a committee sat down last year to really look at all we were trying to do in the amount of time we had with students, we saw why we were always feeling rushed. The older the students grew in Lower School the more capable they were of doing in-depth, prolonged projects, but the less of those long blocks of time appeared in their schedule. We were trying to cram more minutes of instruction/learning than we had with students. Likewise our specialist teachers were trying to do new and innovative things, but without adequate or consistent time with their students. Some of our younger students had schedules that required them to do many transitions in a day, something we knew to be developmentally difficult. After looking at a number of options, we realized that spreading instruction out over six days instead of five allowed us longer blocks of time for students to be in one place, working on integrated tasks with less transitions. A six day schedule gave us the space we'd been looking for.
For the Upper Elementary grades, we felt that intensive time blocks to allow specialist teachers to have continuous periods over one 6 day rotating block would allow students to dive deeper into specialist studies. We are eager to see how an intensive week in these subjects, focused on a unit of study, can help deepen the level of understandings and inquiry for teachers and students. Intensive schedule teachers have one grade level for the 6 day period, which allows for greater focus of instructional time and increased planning time with other grade levels. This upcoming year music, science, technology, and Chaplain/Counselor will be our 4 rotating specialists weeks.
The Middle and Upper Schools were already on a six day schedule, so it made sense to us to adopt their system of colors and letters so that if you have children in different divisions you could keep track of their schedules easily, and to allow for collaboration between divisions. This is how we arrived at the labelling system you've seen; we followed the system already in place. Hence, the reverse-alphabetical listings.
We anticipate the adjustment to a six day week will require a shift in thinking for many students, families and teachers, and, like all change, may feel strange and unfamiliar at first. We do believe the benefits to our students' pace and learning will be worth any disequilibrium. We look forward to learning from you the ways you've found to make the six day schedule part of your family's life, and will dedicate future blog posts to what becomes possible through the new schedule.
Where can you find the new schedule? Visit the OES homepage, go to calendars, and select "daily rotation" in the sidebar on the right. Hit 'apply' and you can see the schedule for the year with the rotation days in place. You can also download this annual calendar overview of the rotation days.
For a number of years Lower School teachers have been asking for a new schedule. The primary reason we felt we needed one is the same reason we decided to build a new building: the kind of learning experiences we want our students engaged in requires time and space. If we are going to hold the expectation that students pose questions and pursue them through collaboration, project work, research, tinkering and fine-tuning, we need both blocks of time and physical spaces that enable that to happen.
When a committee sat down last year to really look at all we were trying to do in the amount of time we had with students, we saw why we were always feeling rushed. The older the students grew in Lower School the more capable they were of doing in-depth, prolonged projects, but the less of those long blocks of time appeared in their schedule. We were trying to cram more minutes of instruction/learning than we had with students. Likewise our specialist teachers were trying to do new and innovative things, but without adequate or consistent time with their students. Some of our younger students had schedules that required them to do many transitions in a day, something we knew to be developmentally difficult. After looking at a number of options, we realized that spreading instruction out over six days instead of five allowed us longer blocks of time for students to be in one place, working on integrated tasks with less transitions. A six day schedule gave us the space we'd been looking for.
For the Upper Elementary grades, we felt that intensive time blocks to allow specialist teachers to have continuous periods over one 6 day rotating block would allow students to dive deeper into specialist studies. We are eager to see how an intensive week in these subjects, focused on a unit of study, can help deepen the level of understandings and inquiry for teachers and students. Intensive schedule teachers have one grade level for the 6 day period, which allows for greater focus of instructional time and increased planning time with other grade levels. This upcoming year music, science, technology, and Chaplain/Counselor will be our 4 rotating specialists weeks.
The Middle and Upper Schools were already on a six day schedule, so it made sense to us to adopt their system of colors and letters so that if you have children in different divisions you could keep track of their schedules easily, and to allow for collaboration between divisions. This is how we arrived at the labelling system you've seen; we followed the system already in place. Hence, the reverse-alphabetical listings.
We anticipate the adjustment to a six day week will require a shift in thinking for many students, families and teachers, and, like all change, may feel strange and unfamiliar at first. We do believe the benefits to our students' pace and learning will be worth any disequilibrium. We look forward to learning from you the ways you've found to make the six day schedule part of your family's life, and will dedicate future blog posts to what becomes possible through the new schedule.
Where can you find the new schedule? Visit the OES homepage, go to calendars, and select "daily rotation" in the sidebar on the right. Hit 'apply' and you can see the schedule for the year with the rotation days in place. You can also download this annual calendar overview of the rotation days.
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