Curriculum
The WNESU Office of Curriculum and Instruction supports administrators, teachers, and students through the coordination of all aspects related to teaching and learning across our PreK-12th grade classrooms. We aspire to meet each learner where they are and bring them forward toward successfully acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to become a capable and confident member of our wider community.
Curriculum & Instruction Staff
Curriculum
WNESU students participate in a wide variety of learning experiences across their day. Focus content areas include English Language Arts (ELA), Math, Science and Social Studies.
Instruction
We support teachers in striving to incorporate high-leverage instructional practices (HLIPs) for inclusive and engaging learning across each and every day. These instructional practices provide opportunities for students to learn through collaboration, discourse, critical thinking and hands-on activities. Across classrooms, we aim for students to understand daily learning targets, set individual goals and reflect on their learning and progress toward meeting those goals. Utilizing a gradual release of responsibility, teachers provide concrete models of high quality work, engage in working through shared examples and then allow students to try new skills independently.
Assessment
The primary purpose of assessment is to formatively drive the instruction provided for our students and reflect on student progress across their learning experiences.
English / Language Arts
In WNESU, we utilize a variety of programming to meet students’ needs across grades K-8. These research-based programs contain high-quality materials, moving students through a progression where they learn to read in the younger years (K-3), focusing on foundational skill development and then read to learn as they move into the upper elementary years and apply the skills they’ve learned.
Our literacy programs (below) were selected through a year-long process including a committee of stakeholders (teachers, administrators and community members) who viewed a wide variety of literacy programs, utilized research-based criteria to narrow them down, piloted units from each program and observed the programs in action within other schools nearby. UFLI was selected for implementation in 2023 and EL was selected in 2024.
University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI): Foundational skills program
UFLI is an explicit and systematic program that teaches students the foundational skills necessary for proficient reading. It follows a carefully developed scope and sequence designed to ensure that students learn each skill needed and then apply those skills to reading with confidence and ease.
Expeditionary Learning (EL): ELA literacy program
The EL Education K-8 Language Arts curriculum is a comprehensive, content-based literacy program designed to engage students through compelling, real-world topics. It blends academic rigor with social-emotional learning, empowering students to become ethical, confident learners who contribute to their communities.
EL Information for Families
Parent Perspectives on the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum
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Math
Illustrative Math K–5 & 6-8 (IM) provides teachers with coherently sequenced materials based on the standards and research-based learning trajectories to support students’ learning in these early years. IM K–5 Math is rigorous, problem-based, and fully aligned to the standards, with coherence across grade bands.
IM math curricula are research-driven and fully aligned to college and career-ready standards to ensure teachers have the tools needed to facilitate student success.
IM information for families:
Science
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K–12 science content standards. Standards set the expectations for what students should know and be able to do. The NGSS were developed by states to improve science education for all students.
Get to know the standards: Why NGSS?
Social Studies
The College, Career and Civic Life (C-3) Social Studies Standards guide the content and instruction across our grades K-12. The C-3 standards are designed to approach learning through questioning that sparks curiosity, guiding students through investigations where they acquire rigorous content and apply their knowledge and ideas in real world settings to become active and engaged citizens in the 21st century. The Vermont Agency of Education adopted the C-3 Social Studies Standards in 2017.