Curriculum at Nova | Curriculum at Nova | Homework

The Curriculum at Nova
Nova's curriculum has been developed b through collaboration between the parent-led Curriculum Committee, the faculty of Nova, and outside experts. It represents the vanguard of modern scholarship within the classical model.

Our curriculum is both age-appropriate and accelerated; we push all students to achieve higher levels of competence at all times. In all grades, history is the guiding principle. For example, as students study Ancient Greece in grade 5 history class, they are also studying Ancient Grecian art, music and literature.

History is divided into four eras. Each era is studied in a four-year cycle, beginning with grade 1. This allows for each period in history to be visited three times, once in each stage of the trivium. This "spiraling" allows for students to build from a broader to a deeper understanding of history, work with more sophisticated primary texts, and develop a clearer conception of how ideas have unfolded over time.

1. Prehistory to the fall of Rome (grades 1, 5, 9)
2. The fall of Rome to the Renaissance (grades 2, 6, 10)
3. The Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution (grades 3, 7, 11)
4. The Industrial Revolution to the present day (grades 4, 8, 12)

Curriculum at Nova
We are happy to provide school-, grade- and subject-level overviews for our curricular program. If you have more specific questions, please direct them to the Director of Curriculum and Instruction. (non-active links are still under construction)

School Level
Please view our Curriculum Guide document (requires Adobe Acrobat)

Grade- and Subject-level overview

Homework
Students at Nova receive homework regularly. Homework is integral to a student moving forward in a rigorous school. Nova's position on homework is as follows:

Homework is an invaluable tool to the learning process. It fulfills both academic and character education ends. At the same time, we recognize that students need leisure to relax, pursue other interests, and spend time with family.

When we design and assign homework at Nova, we understand its three primary academic purposes to be:

1. Preparation - allows the student to prepare for a challenging lesson by grounding him/herself in introductory materials. In turn, this allows for class presentations and discussions to be more engaging.
2. Reinforcement - allows the student to practice concepts introduced in class to attain familiarity.
3. Mastery - allows the student to practice concepts to the point of personal proficiency (necessary to move forward in a skills-based curriculum).
   In addition to the academic goals of homework, homework serves ends towards character education: it builds up the qualities in a child necessary to success throughout life, like discipline, planning, decision-making, and accepting responsibility for one's actions.

Nova Classical Academy will design homework assignments to meet these academic and character learning goals. In addition, we will engage in norming of time-demands to ensure that the homework load does not become egregious. We also encourage parents to become involved with their child's homework in ways which facilitate communication, discussions, and sharing of lessons. In this way, parents and teachers continue to work together to educate the whole child.