The “Adelphi Plan” grows out of the traditional values and goals of the Academy.  As the Academy’s founding Headmaster, Mr. John Lockwood, believed, the best education is that which prepares students as thinking and contributing members of their community.  Students should be learned in the cultural inheritance of our society, and possess the acumen and skills to take their parts in that society according to their abilities and interests.

The “Adelphi Plan” is part of that tradition.  It is a plan of studies that concentrates on the basic scholastic accomplishments in our English language and literature, in History, Mathematics, and Science.  It also emphasizes the necessity of understanding the acquisition of skills in other languages in our global village and in communication technology.  As fully complete individuals, students also follow a regular discipline of Physical Education, aesthetic and artistic education, and a course of studies permeated with moral and personal instruction and development.

The course of studies presented through the preparatory school years concentrates on the mastery of skills in the core subject areas of English, History, Mathematics and Science.  This is reflected in the allocation of time to these studies.  Furthermore, the course of studies provides for the differing rates of development and skills of each student within each subject area and gives the support necessary for achievement and accomplishment according to the student’s abilities.

Gifted students are challenged to attain their potential and develop habits of inquiry and scholarship that will assist them in realizing their talents.  Students of good ability are provided enrichment and support to compete on an equal level with other students in their grade level and subject.  Students who have not reached their potential or who require reinforcement and varied instruction to achieve mastery of the core curriculum receive appropriate direction.

A premise of the “Adelphi Plan” is that formal education strives for excellence, but is not elitist.  It is posited on the belief that learning is natural to man and that all students in school can learn.  It then addresses the question of appropriate instruction.  It values all children as it respects humanity, and individualizes and supports instruction responsive to each individual child.  It asserts traditionally recognized standards of accomplishment and reasonably expects students to achieve at these and personally higher levels.

The course of studies embraces various modes of learning, recognizing that mastery of instruction is realized through a number of methods.  Lessons provide both information and modeling of knowledge – the didactic transfer of cognitive knowledge; workshops and seminars allow for small group coaching, reinforcement, mastery and individual exploration – the opportunity for personal achievement according to one’s readiness and talents; and tutorials give the direct practice and testing with personal teacher direction to support mastery and individual accomplishment in each of the core scholastic skills and areas.

PROGRESSION AND MOTIFS

Grade 7	American Heritage "Who am I?"
Grade 8	The World We Live In “Where Do I Fit In?”
Grade 9	The Hellenic-Judeo-Christian Tradition Growth and Maturity
Grade 10	European Origins and the Western World Life, Love and Being
Grade 11	American Culture and Society Conflict Purpose and Transition
Grade 12	The Modern Age and Contemporary Society Identity Purpose and the Future

The “Adelphi Plan” is concentrated according to two concerns – society and the self – our cultural inheritance and the personal individual development of our students.

In the Upper School years there is a progression beginning in the Freshman Year with our common American “Hellenic-Judeo-Christian” tradition.  The Sophomore Year considers our nation’s European origins and the western world while the Junior Year concentrates on understanding American Culture and Society.

As the culmination of our scholastic program, the Senior Year brings the student’s focus to the world that they will soon be expected to participate in and contribute to.  Scholastically, students are investigating and coming to terms with the Modern Age and Contemporary Society, while personally the motif supports an inquiry of individual identity, purpose and a confrontation with the future, both societal and personal.

THE COALITION OF ESSENTIAL SCHOOLS
(Adelphi Academy – Founding Member)

PROSPECTUS

The Coalition of Essential Schools is a high school-university partnership devoted to strengthening the learning of students by performing each school’s priorities and simplifying its structure.  What Coalition Schools hold in common is a simple set of principles, which give focus to their effort.
           
The Coalition is an extension of A Study of High Schools, an inquiry into American secondary education conducted from 1981 to 1984, co-sponsored by the National Association of Independent Schools.  As a part of its findings, the Study identified five “imperatives” for better schools:

• Give room to teachers and students to work and learn in their own appropriate ways.

• Insist that students clearly exhibit mastery of their schoolwork.

• Get the incentives right, for students and for teachers.

• Focus the students’ work on the use of their minds.

• Keep the structure simple and flexible.

The rationale for these imperatives is detailed in the first of the Study’s three publications, Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (by Theodore S. Sizer, published by Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984).  Simple though they may at first sound, these commitments, if addresses seriously, will have significant consequences for many schools, affecting both their organization and the attitudes of those who work within them.  It is these consequences that the Coalition addresses with its common principles.

COMMON PRINCIPLES

• AN INTELLECTUAL FOCUS.  The school should focus on helping adolescents to learn to use their minds well.  Schools should not attempt to be “comprehensive” if such a slain is made at the expense of the school’s central intellectual purpose.

• SIMPLE GOALS.  The school’s goals should be simple: that each student master a limited number of essential skills and areas of knowledge.  While these skills and areas will, to varying degrees, reflect the traditional academic disciplines, the program’s design should be shaped by the intellectual and imaginative powers and competencies that students need, rather than necessarily by “subjects” as conventionally defined.  The aphorism “Less is More” should dominate:  curricular decisions should be guided by the aim of through student mastery and achievement rather than by an effort merely to “cover content”.

• UNIVERSAL GOALS.  The school’s goals should apply to all students, while the means to these goals will vary as those students themselves vary.  School practice should be tailor-made to meet the needs of every group or class of adolescents.

• PERSONALIZATION.  Teaching and learning should be personalized to the maximum feasible extent.  Efforts should be directed toward a goal that no teacher have direct responsibility for more than eighty students.  To capitalize on this personalization, decisions about the details of the course of study, the use of students’ and teacher’s time, and the choice of teaching materials and specific pedagogies must be unreservedly placed in the hands of the faculty.

• STUDENT-AS-WORKER.  The governing practical metaphor of the school should be student-as-worker, rather than the more familiar metaphor of teacher-as-deliverer-of-instructional-services.  Accordingly, a prominent pedagogy will be coaching, to stimulate students to learn how to learn, and thus to teach themselves.

• DIPLOMA EXIBITION.  Students entering secondary school studies are those who can show competence in language and elementary mathematics.  Students of traditional high school age but not yet at appropriate levels of competence to enter secondary schools studies will be provided intensive remedial work to assist them quickly to meet these standards.  The diploma should be awarded upon a successful final demonstration of mastery for graduation…an “exhibition.”  This exhibition of the student’s grasp of the central skills and knowledge of the school’s program may be jointly administered by the faculty and by higher authorities.  The emphasis is on the student’s demonstration that they can do important things.

• ATTITUDE.  The tone of the school should explicitly and self-consciously stress values of unanxious expectation (“I won’t threaten you but I expect much of you”), of trust (until abused), and decency (the values of fairness, generosity and tolerance).  Incentives appropriate to the school’s particular students and teachers should be emphasized, and parents should be treated as essential collaborators.

• STAFF.  The faculty should perceive themselves as generalists first (teachers and scholars in general education) and specialist second (experts in particular disciplines).  Staff should expect multiple obligations (teacher-counselor-manager) and a sense of commitment to the entire school.

• BUDGET.  Ultimate administrative and budget targets should include, in addition to total student loads per teacher of eighty or fewer pupils, substantial time for collective planning by teachers, competitive salaries for staff and an ultimate per pupil cost not to exceed that at traditional schools.