Our Curriculum

Thank you for considering joining our family at Maplewood Academy. By joining us, you are embracing the idea of learning through exploration and discovery, as well as demonstrating a passion for seeing your child grow in a free-thinking, internationally-minded environment. 

Maplewood Academy’s winning formula revolves around its modern, thematic curriculum called the ‘Immersive Learning Environment’, or ILE for short. As an emergent-style curriculum, our talented educators are able craft and deliver their lessons based on the interests of their specific class group.

The ILE differentiates between subjects (Math, Science, etc.) and shifts focus to the development of character traits, which are crucial to fostering the critical thinking skills that sets graduates apart from the industry standard. 

At Maplewood Academy we are proud to be using a curriculum that was crafted by our own development team, and will continue to be developed by our very own staff and students. That’s right, the students themselves will play a vital role in the ongoing development and evolution of their own learning. That’s the heart and soul of the emergent learning philosophy. The ILE curriculum embraces the idea of learning through exploration and discovery by immersing students in a free-thinking, globally-minded environment.

On our calendars, class time is labeled as ‘Theme’, rather than the traditional ‘Math’ or ‘Art’ that are recognizable on other institutions’ timetables. This is due to the fact that the ILE is broken down by learning goals and personal development traits, rather than subject goals. At Maplewood Academy, we aim for each child to graduate being Open-Minded, Independent, Cooperative, Respectful, Adaptable and Inquisitive. This differentiation between subjects and character traits is crucial to developing the skills that will guide your child both academically, and throughout their life.

As mentioned earlier, at Maplewood Academy we aim to nurture individual traits and standards to ensure that each child is prepared for their graduation into Kindergarten or Elementary School. To play our part in this preparation, our teaching staff design each lesson to foster one or more of these standards so that by the end of the school year each student has all of the tools necessary to be successful the following year. Our Maplewood Standards also adheres to the standards set in several countries across the globe, so that children who hope to register for schooling overseas will have all of the building blocks necessary to properly integrate into their existing curricula as well.  

As described above, Maplewood Academy uses the ILE curriculum, which is a modern, thematic, emergent-style curriculum. 

On our calendars, you will notice that the majority of class time is labeled as “Theme”, rather than the typical “Math” or “English” that you may be used to. This is due to the fact that emergent curricula, like ours, are thematic. This means that rather than using a textbook to dictate lessons, our talented educators are able to craft their lessons based 100% around the interests of their class groups.

Our specific curriculum is specialized even further as our Themes, Topics and lessons are broken down by learning goals and personal traits, rather than subject goals. At Maplewood Academy, we aim for each child to enter Elementary School being: RESPECTFUL, ADAPTABLE, OPEN-MINDED, INDEPENDENT, COOPERATIVE & INQUISITIVE.

This differentiation between subjects and character traits is crucial to fostering the critical thinking skills that will set your child apart from the rest when it comes time for graduation. That being said, each Topic is designed to foster one or more basic skills that may fall into these typical subjects. Mirroring this, each week a summary is sent home which will have a breakdown of what Topics and learning goals have been covered during that week. We hope that our families can take some time over the weekends to review or expand upon some of the content from the letter. This review and/or expansion is pivotal to each child's learning, as it creates a bridge between school life and home life. This bridging technique is used often at Maplewood Academy, as we make connections with curriculum, socialization, daily expectations and much more. Simply put, our staff and you, the parent, will share the responsibility of preparing your children for their academic career.

At the onset of each new Theme, all of the teaching staff will meet together in order to design a plan for the upcoming weeks. This plan is built specifically for the children of each class, based on the learning styles, personalities and likes/dislikes of each child. Each Topic of Exploration is crafted so that each child gets as much as possible from it, and this should show by their enthusiasm at home and eagerness to answer your questions.

Our curriculum is called the ILE (Immersive Learning Environment), and here’s a breakdown of how it works:

Each Theme runs in a cyclical manner, with three major stepping points. Prior to Step One, a letter will be sent home outlining our pre-assessment and summative assessment, so as to get you ready for what’s coming up. We hope that you can take a few moments to encourage your child with whatever means you are most comfortable with.

STEP ONE begins with a segue from the previous topic, which leads into the pre-assessment. Step One’s primary focus is gathering a basepoint of pre-existing knowledge from the students, which is used to garner or intensify an interest in the upcoming “Big Idea”. During this step, the students will be introduced to their environment, which will be catered for each Theme’s specific needs and learning goals.

STEP TWO is the area where the vast majority of the students’ exploration and learning will take place. It, in itself, is run cyclically, rotating with each new Topic of Exploration (TE). The TE is introduced, explored, and then creatively assessed. Formative assessments are meant to serve as a ‘pulse check’ for the students as well as the teacher, to see if any ideas would benefit from being revisited so as to solidify any valuable content or goals. Formative assessments should be creative, fun and free of traditional ‘pen and paper’ testing. Student work from this step is often displayed on walls and windows for encouragement, as well as to simply add to the immersion of the environment.

STEP THREE is where the students will have the opportunity to produce a ‘final product’ which summarizes what they have learned over the course of the Theme. This should, for the most part, be a large-scale, parent-involved event so that the students can proudly display/perform what they have been working on for the past several weeks. When this step is complete, displayed materials are free to be sent home.