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Briarwood School is a child-centered environment where children are active learners! Our students are unique individuals and participate in a myriad of educational experiences. Each child’s individual differences are celebrated, which results in a variety of learning experiences that promotes skill development, curiosity and high level thinking skills. Each child brings his or her own abilities and potential to learn at Briarwood.
Briarwood is committed to setting high standards for all students. The staff’s commitment is to provide excellence in delivery or instruction in order to assist and guide each student and to maximize his or her learning.
Our math curriculum is based on research that supports the fact that students typically do not learn a new skill or concept when first taught; therefore we repeatedly expose our students to the math and skills concepts at each grade level. Each grade builds and extends students’ understanding of math with an instructional model that is committed to hands-on experiences, including small group and large group opportunities to hone their math skills. We are committed to repeated practice of skill development in the context of problem solving. For the 2008-2009 school year, our district adopted a new math program called "Math Connects" published by McMacmillian/McGraw-Hill. It is a research-based program that was developed with the "end results" in mind. It was designed to develop a solid foundation and seamless transition from grade to grade.
Our communication arts curriculum combines reading and writing instruction in order to provide students with opportunities to be life-long learners in a diverse and changing world. Our curriculum supports early literacy development for all children. Our teachers are devoted to providing solid instruction that employs strong instruction and creativity to deliver instruction to all our students. We are committed to a language-enriched environment with many opportunities for reading and writing. We use a literature-based reading/writing program that focused on instruction in phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary development, comprehension, fluency, writing and developing study/research skills for all students. A combination of instructional strategies are used such as guided reading groups leveled for instruction, independent reading with opportunities for self-selection, large group instruction, center opportunities. Students needing enriching opportunities extend their reading with teacher guided independent activities. Students needing additional instruction in reading are provided small group both in and/or out of the classroom to build their areas of difficulty. Briarwood basic skills and special education programs also provide a multi-sensory reading approach for students requiring additional support. Our reading program is the Macmillian/ McGraw-Hill Reading/Language Arts program. In September 2005 we expanded the reading program to our kindergarten, providing a comprehensive K-2 program.
Briarwood’s entire curriculum is committed to improve student learning for all. We are aligned to the New Jersey Core Content Curriculum Standards. Click on the link to view these Standards. http://www.state.nj.us/njded/cccs |
