Administration - The Plato Learning Academy is a CPS Renaissance 2010 school and is part of the American Quality Schools Corporation, a not-for-profit educational management company.
AQS schools are public charter and contract schools and offer open admission to all children. AQS believes in the innate capacity of every child to succeed and is committed to:
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Excellence in education
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Measurable standards of excellence
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High academic standards
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Dedicated faculty
The school has a college preparatory curriculum, which is both
rigorous and exciting. The basic curriculum is based on the "Core
Knowledge Sequence", which is used in over 600 schools throughout the United
States. It allows us to go beyond the Illinois Standards so as to allow
for even higher levels of achievement. Emphasis is placed on active
student participatory learning through a variety of innovative teaching
strategies.
Core Knowledge Sequence
Core Knowledge Sequence, is aligned with the Illinois State Standards, which are specific for each grade level in the areas of Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Science, Physical Development and Health, Fine Arts and Foreign Language. The Core Knowledge Sequence goes beyond the State standards by allowing students to be challenged by a rigorous, sequentially structured curriculum, which simultaneously enhances skill development and critical thinking, as well as content mastery. Core Knowledge serves as the foundation for college preparatory work.
Paideia Method
The Paideia (pronounced pie-day-uh) represents a philosophy and strategy for structuring the school organization and utilizing various teaching strategies and methodologies:
Didactic Mode
Acquiring organized knowledge through means such as textbooks, lectures and videos.
Coaching Aspect:
At the core of the Paideia program, coaching requires practice, mastery, and learning by doing. This aspect can be utilized in the forms of labs, cooperative learning techniques, and project-centered/product-oriented learning.
Seminar Component:
This is a way for students to deepen their understanding of the ideas they have been studying, and apply them to their own lives and values. Teachers fulfill this component through facilitating open exploration of the ideas in a subject matter text, creating a bond of mutual respect (between teacher and student), allowing conflict resolution, listening, articulation, and applying knowledge and skills to new situations.
The Junior Great Books Program allows our students to be exposed to the best children’s literature in the world. The works are carefully selected from around the world to give children a global and multicultural perspective. In many ways, this program ties the Core Knowledge Sequence and Paideia methodology together.
Character Education
Today’s children face a complex and troubling world sometimes filled with uncertainties. The traits that we hope to instill are neither readily apparent nor easy to grasp and put into practice. Therefore, our challenge is to provide young people with the self-esteem, energy, and knowledge necessary to survive, be successful and develop into strong, competent, caring, and responsible citizens.
Reading
AQS believes that teaching elementary students to be successful readers is our most fundamental and highest priority. Each day in all AQS managed schools every teacher and teacher aide becomes a reading teacher/aide for 1.5 hours. Students are taught using the Balance Literacy Reading Program in grades K-6. In addition, where appropriate, the Direct Instruction method is employed.
Math
Also fundamental to the AQS program is the math program. We use the Saxon Mathematics Series which is supplemented by AQS teacher developed materials.
American Quality Schools