If you ask Moss Haven students their grade, they can’t answer the question. And that makes the elementary school’s administrators and teachers happy because it means they are accomplishing what they set out to do three years ago.
That’s when Moss Haven implemented a multi-age curriculum that does away with traditional classes and teaching methods.
Now, the school’s students are classified in three levels – primary, intermediate and upper. Primary is for students who traditionally are in first and second grades, intermediate is third and fourth grades, and upper is fifth and sixth grades.
“We were wanting to get rid of this mentality that because you’re in a certain grade, you have to learn a certain thing,” says Mackie Seid, the school’s counselor.
“It’s only in elementary where we group kids together.”
The school’s teachers work in teams, allowing more attention for each student. Instead of having one curriculum for all students, each student works at an individual level established by teachers.
Since the curriculum was installed, Seid says there has been an increase in test scores, and students seem happier.
Jackie Farley, a primary teacher, says the multi-age curriculum is similar to a one-room classroom.
At the beginning of the year, she had students ranging from those who couldn’t read to one who was reading an encyclopedia. The traditional curriculum would have been tailored for students between these extremes, but the new curriculum meets every students’ needs, she says.
“The key here is you take them where they are, and take them as far as you can while you have them,” Farley says.
“It’s the idea that the school fits the child,” Seid says.
The curriculum is designed to encourage interaction between different age-groups. Upper level students sometimes read with primary students and help the younger students with lesson plans.
“That’s a lot like a neighborhood or a family is,” Seid says.
Five years ago, school officials began researching new teaching theories. Seid says the one that came up most was the multi-age curriculum. So the Moss Haven group found an elementary school in Lake George, N.Y., that had implemented the program.
Then, students and staff sold wrapping paper to raise the funds necessary to fly teachers and administrators to tour the New York school prior to implementing the curriculum.
Because the structure differs from traditional teaching methods, Seid says many parents initially were skeptical. But once the curriculum began producing improvements, Seid says teachers and administrators haven’t had to do much convincing.
“Their kids’ education, after their kids’ health, is the next important thing,” Seid says.
Upper level students Kathleen Hinton, Emily Morgan and Trisha Allen started attending Moss Haven in kindergarten. They say they like the multi-age curriculum.
“Now, I’m being challenged,” says Morgan, who along with some classmates typically works math problems at the seventh-grade level.
Allen says she has friends at other schools, and she doesn’t think they’re learning as much as she is.
“No, I don’t,” Allen says. “They’re at a lower level.”
“They’re doing what we did last year,” Morgan says.
