Curriculum
Pathways Children’s School’s educational philosophy focuses on curriculum development using student-directed content, meaningful and appropriate access to learning materials, and standards-based assessments for tracking progress through the guidance of NY state approved programs.
All Pathways students are tracked for progress in English Language Arts, math, science and social studies using Dynamic Learning Maps and Readtopia as an anchor for curriculum content. At Pathways, we are working with leading literacy specialists who create curriculum for students using communication devices. All students participate in individual, small group and large group lessons using cutting edge differentiated lessons for AAC users. We achieve children's goals by encouraging curriculum activities, which involve critical thinking and encourage students’ discussion and participation. At Pathways, we believe our students should be exposed to the same content to maintain the wholeness of the classroom while promoting individual progress through individualized adaptations and differentiated lesson planning.
PCS encourages students to take part in annual curriculum development by planning field trips together, coming up with monthly themes to create a student-driven, teacher-directed thematic curriculum. In 2018-2019, Pathways students focused on “global citizenship” and explored the idea of looking at the entire world as a single, emerging community. Our students explored their immediate surroundings, the communities they are a part of and began to look at other communities all over the world to explore differences and similarities. By exploring different communities, we learned more about ourselves and see how people all over the world have common values despite different common practices.
The student is the nucleus of our learning structure with the energy, motivation and ideas all coming from the center. Pathways prides itself on seizing opportunities, creating content and moving to the groove of the city with pride and independence with a student-centric approach.
