Junior Program

JUNIOR PROGRAM

CORE PHASE

“The goal of parents and teachers working with a child in Core Phase is to help him see that he has genius inside, that he is capable of great things, and that part of his goals in life should be about doing his best to improve and serve," Oliver DeMille.

Core Phase is that magical time of nurture and growth. Lessons of Core Phase are taught through work and play by using the tools of math, history, art, science and literature.

LOVE OF LEARNING

The Love of Learning class provides activities in math, history, geography, science, art, writing and literature. Oral presentations are encouraged. Mentor-led activities based on classic books teach values and introduce children to heroes and includes club time. More...

Our junior program supports families with children ages 0-12. The purpose of the junior program is to help you as a parent to engage with your Core Phase and re-spark your love of learning by preparing lessons for and teaching the children. "If you think these principles are primarily about improving your child's or students education, you will never have the power to inspire them to do the hard work of self-education. Focus on your education and invite them along for the ride." (Oliver DeMille, Leadership Education The Phases of Learning). The added bonus is that your children get to interact with other great families and learn leadership principles as well.

Being part of the commonwealth means we bring our talents and use them for the common good. It means we all contribute in whatever way benefits the commonwealth. Because of this, there are things that you will be committing to as a member of the junior program.

You, as the parent must stay at the school the entire day with your children.
If you or your children are sick and need to stay home, all children in the junior program in your family must stay home as well.
If you are not committed to teaching a scholar project, you will be asked to help teach a class as a co-lead in the junior program for one session (2 hours), You are also committing to preparing 30-60 minutes outside of class each week.
You will be asked to follow a rotating schedule in which you will help the lead teachers with their classes for the other session that you will not be teaching.
As a lead or assistant lead teacher you will be participating in a monthly debrief about the class you are teaching during school time.
Each family will have an additional volunteer responsibility to help our school run effectively.

If you do not have any kids that are in the junior program we ask, that because we are a family school, you still participate in the rotation of classes in the junior program to serve the other members of the commonwealth.