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Curriculum

The Hillsdale College K-12 Curriculum is the curriculum of Seacoast Classical Academy, serving grades K to 8. The curriculum is designed for classical education in public charter schools. It is content-rich with a focus on literacy, numeracy, history, and science, with strong components of foreign language, art, music, and physical education.

  • The literacy curriculum component, Literacy Essentials, uses a multi-sensory approach for teaching phonics, spelling, vocabulary, reading, handwriting, and grammar. It reflects the urgency of early literacy.
  • The mathematics curriculum component is Singapore Math. From the earliest grades, this program emphasizes concepts, mental math, and number sense while employing physical and graphical illustrations of underlying mathematical rules and relationships. The program presents mathematical skill building and problem solving such that scholars have a better understanding of not simply when to use a particular method—but why.
  • Content from Core Knowledge contributes to the curriculum. Core Knowledge is characterized by a strong emphasis on language, content-richness in all subjects, and a focus on historical, literary, and scientific traditions.
  • The history & civics component emphasizes rigorous study of primary historical sources.
  • Foreign-language, art, music, and physical-education components complete a well-rounded early education in the liberal arts and sciences.
  • The Hillsdale College K-12 Curriculum has been approved for use in dozens of public charter schools in 18 states. They are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
  • Here in New Hampshire, the Hillsdale Curriculum is approved for use in 4 schools, including Seacoast Classical Academy.

Pedagogy

Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Classical Education

A Seacoast Classical Academy education is rigorous, stimulating, and inspiring.

  • In classical education, abundant knowledge is the raw material of learning. Accordingly, the Academy’s curriculum is content rich, and our instructional methods include direct instruction of this content to expedite rigorous knowledge acquisition through literacy and numeracy.
  • Classical education inspires a strong understanding of humanity and nature. Correspondingly, the curriculum is strong in the liberal arts—literature, mathematics, history, science, and fine arts—and our instructional methods strengthen this understanding through practice and creative application of knowledge.
  • In classical education, knowledge and understanding lead to independent critical thinking. The curriculum affords ample age-appropriate opportunities to develop critical thinking through contemplation of literature, a math curriculum emphasizing problem solving, and a history curriculum promoting consideration of primary historical sources. Demonstrations of critical thinking evince mastery, affirming readiness to progress.