Program
Responsive Classroom
Our social emotional learning framework is centered around the Responsive Classroom model and practices. The Four Key Domains of Responsive Classroom:
- Engaging Academics: Learner-centered lessons that are participatory, appropriately challenging, fun, and relevant and promote curiosity, wonder, and interest.
- Positive Community: A safe, predictable, joyful, and inclusive environment where all students have a sense of belonging and significance.
- Effective Management: A calm and orderly learning environment that promotes autonomy, responsibility, and high engagement in learning.
- Developmentally Responsive Teaching: Basing all decisions for teaching and discipline upon research and knowledge of students’ social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development.
Math Excellence
Our chosen curriculum, Bridges in Mathematics, spans from Pre-Kindergarten to 5th grade, ensuring that every Bright School learner has access to a comprehensive, rigorous and accessible math education.
Deep Understanding and Proficiency
Bridges in Mathematics is designed to foster deep understanding of mathematical concepts, proficiency in essential skills and the ability to tackle complex and novel mathematical challenges. Our students not only learn how to solve problems but also why and how those solutions work. It combines direct instruction for clarity, structured investigation to encourage critical thinking, and open exploration to nurture creativity and problem-solving abilities.
Inclusivity and Strength-Based Learning
We recognize that every student has unique strengths and abilities. Bridges in Mathematics is designed to tap into these strengths by presenting math materials that are not only mathematically powerful but also linguistically, visually, and kinesthetically rich. This ensures that our curriculum is accessible and engaging for all students, fostering a positive and empowering math-learning environment.
Literacy Excellence
Our literacy framework is carefully designed to ensure that every child at Bright School not only becomes a proficient reader and writer but also develops a genuine love for learning through reading and writing.
Phonics Instruction as the Foundation of Literacy
One of the cornerstones of our approach is the integration of the Science of Reading methods through systematic phonics instruction, phonemic awareness, and evidence-based strategies to teach reading effectively. This framework forms the bedrock of our curriculum.
Reading Workshop: Cultivating Lifelong Readers
The Reading Workshop Units of Study by Teachers’ College Advancing Literacy, aims to develop reading proficiency, language skills and personalized instruction. We foster a love for reading that lasts a lifetime. This workshop provides a comprehensive, cross-curricular framework that introduces, develops and deepens skills across multiple genres. Our students receive explicit instruction in reading skills and strategies, ample time for reading and strategic assessments to set clear reading goals.
Writing Workshop: Nurturing Powerful Authors
Students delve into various genres of writing, including opinion/argumentative, information and narrative writing. This method combines explicit instruction with enjoyable practice, empowering students to take ownership of their writing. Our dedicated teachers assess student writing, guiding their growth and instilling pride in their abilities as authors.
Phonics and Word Study: Building Essential Skills
For our youngest learners in grades JPK-Prek, our Heggerty Phonemic Awareness curriculum teaches phonological and phonemic skills such as rhyming, initial phoneme isolation, blending and adding and deleting phonemes. Basically, these “ear exercises” around letter sounds help our early childhood students develop a strong literacy foundation from the start. In K-2, our Bridge to Reading phonics program by Heggerty also offers a streamlined pathway rooted in the Science of Reading. It systematically fosters phonemic awareness, phonics concepts, and strategies that align with students' reading and writing development. In grades 3-5, our word study program provides direct instruction in decoding, spelling, and mastering multisyllabic words. This approach equips students to confidently tackle more complex reading materials. We believe in using words in context and short, content-rich passages to enhance reading and spelling proficiency, ultimately building comprehension and fluency.
At Bright School, literacy and mathematics are not just subjects; they are a journey of exploration, discovery and lifelong learning.
Character education
Director of Student Services Brittany Williams conducts interactive character education lessons in each kindergarten through third grade classroom, once every schedule rotation.
Bright uses the C.A.R.E.S. curriculum.
C is for Cooperation
A is for Assertiveness
R is for Responsibility
E is for Empathy
S is for Self Control