Curriculum Insights

We're excited to share the progress and growth our students have experienced as they "fall in love with learning." Our K-3 classrooms have successfully launched the new Arts and Letters ELA materials, providing students with rich, content-driven texts that are building strong foundational literacy skills alongside deep knowledge. This commitment to rigorous, engaged learning is also evident in our upper grades, where we are continuing the strategic expansion of Expeditionary Learning (EL) instructional methodology. This approach emphasizes high-quality project-based learning (PBL), encouraging students to tackle complex challenges, promote authentic inquiry, and apply their learning across various subjects.

Our instruction across all grades is intensely data-driven. We are leveraging key assessment tools like DIBELS (Grades K-6) to target early literacy skill mastery, and LinkIt! Benchmarks (Grades 2-8) and Universal Screeners for Number Sense (USNS) (Grades K-5) to provide diagnostic insights into student performance in both ELA and Math. Teachers analyze this comprehensive data to form flexible small groups and tailor specific interventions, ensuring every student receives the precise support needed to meet their learning goals.

Students and teachers alike have fallen in love with learning whether exploring scientific chemical changes or analyzing how to maximize instructional tools! Thank you for your continued partnership as we work to ensure every student is engaged in meaningful and challenging academic work.

Cheryl Cuddihy, Ed.D.

Director of Curriculum & Instruction

Our instructional philosophy and approach have undergone a significant transformation over the past two years as we fully commit to a knowledge-building curriculum model across all grade levels.

This philosophical shift is anchored by the adoption of two new, comprehensive literacy programs:

• Grades 4-8: We continue with Expeditionary Learning (EL), adopted last year.

• Grades K-3: This school year, we proudly introduced Arts & Letters.

The Arts & Letters curriculum centers each module around a high-interest topic drawn from literature, the arts, social studies, or science. Students are actively engaged in building new knowledge together through a deep dive into carefully curated text collections. This approach moves beyond simply "activating" prior knowledge; instead, it establishes a shared foundational knowledge that empowers all students to unlock deeper meaning in subsequent, more complex texts.

Students have regular, structured opportunities to synthesize their learning and connect new information to existing understandings. Furthermore, across the K–8 continuum, certain module topics strategically reappear and are explored from new angles, dramatically strengthening our students' long-term content knowledge base.

While this has required a substantial investment of effort from our dedicated teachers as they master new materials and expectations, the results have been tremendous. Students are flourishing as they explore universally grounded topics like the senses, the world of books, seasonal changes, and the sea. This approach, rooted in universal human experiences, ensures that we successfully develop robust background knowledge across diverse populations, ultimately leading to profound comprehension and engagement.

Our teachers are empowered to bring their own creative flair to module implementation. For example, our Kindergarten students recently read My Five Senses while making organic connections to the autumnal season—tasting different apples, examining leaf structure, and comparing pumpkin sizes.

A core feature of the Arts & Letters curriculum is arts integration. Kindergarteners explored the concept of tableau, a collaborative teaching strategy. This involves students creating a still, "living picture" that physically represents a concept, story, or idea using only their bodies, expressions, and gestures. This non-verbal communication tool is often followed by a reporter-style interview, allowing us to probe and deepen their comprehension. We are committed to highlighting more innovative and collaborative teaching structures throughout the year.

The first Grade 4 Module, Poetry, Poets, and Becoming Writers, is thoughtfully designed to ignite students' love of literacy and writing by exploring the profound question: What inspires writers to write poetry?

Students focus on developing crucial close reading skills through deep engagement with literature and poetry. The anchor text for this unit is the captivating novel-in-verse, Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. As students read, they track the emotional journey of the main character, Jack, analyzing his changing feelings and responses to events in the story.

Alongside the novel, students closely read and analyze a carefully curated selection of poems that Jack encounters and references, including classics like "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. This analysis moves beyond surface-level reading, requiring students to:

• Determine a theme present in the poems.

• Identify characteristics of poetry (such as imagery, rhythm, and structure).

• Effectively summarize the poems, demonstrating deep comprehension.

One of the most rewarding outcomes of this module is the opportunity students have to step into the role of the writer and create their own unique poetry.

The true culmination of this work was our recent Poetry Celebration! We were delighted to welcome parents and families to this event where students confidently shared their original creations. This celebration was a powerful demonstration of their newfound appreciation for poetic language and their ability to express their own voices through the written word.

Red Bank Middle School is proud to host the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program, which focuses on college and career readiness by equipping students with essential academic and social skills. AVID's core mission is to promote rigorous learning, organization, and critical thinking for students with the greatest potential. The program is significantly enhanced by its dynamic partnership with Project Write Now (PWN), a local non-profit dedicated to transforming lives through writing. This unique collaboration provides AVID students with specialized, real-world writing instruction that goes beyond the classroom curriculum, helping them develop their voices, articulate complex ideas, and build the confidence necessary for high school and beyond.

The success of this partnership is driven by the dedicated individuals leading the charge. Jennifer Chauhan, the visionary leader of Project Write Now, works closely with the district to design and tailor the curriculum, ensuring it aligns with AVID's objectives. The students benefit directly from the expertise of Lisa Hartstgrove, who teaches the specialized writing workshops. Lisa provides engaging, hands-on instruction that guides students through the writing process—from brainstorming and drafting to revision and publication—significantly strengthening their ability to communicate effectively and persuasively in all academic areas.

The strong bond between RBMS AVID and PWN was recently highlighted during Project Write Now's 11th Anniversary Celebration on October 22 at the Two River Theater. The event served as a powerful testament to the students' growth, featuring a moment when the AVID students took the stage to share their class poem. This brave and inspiring reading showcased the power of their collaboration with PWN, demonstrating their newfound confidence in public speaking and their ability to articulate complex feelings and ideas through shared written work. It was a proud moment for the students and the entire AVID and PWN community.

The National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) Mentorship Program stands out as one of the most rewarding experiences for our members. Each NJHS student is thoughtfully paired with a Grade 4 buddy to create a seamless and exciting transition to Red Bank Middle School. These experienced student leaders offer consistent support, making personalized visits to their buddies in class, during lunch, or before homeroom. These check-ins provide vital encouragement, a friendly smile, and a dependable older student they can count on during a year of big changes. This mentorship often evolves into genuine friendships, with connections naturally continuing at school events, dances, and even outside of school. Through these meaningful relationships, our NJHS members actively model the spirit of kindness, leadership, and the foundational philosophies of AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination), ensuring our newest students feel welcomed, supported, and ready for middle school rigor.

The Red Bank School District has strategically partnered with the Magnolia Consulting Group and LinkIt! to significantly enhance teachers' ability to leverage data for instructional improvement. This collaboration focuses on providing educators with targeted professional development to dive deeper into the insights generated by the LinkIt! assessment platform. By working closely with Magnolia's experts, teachers are learning to move beyond simple score reporting, analyzing student performance trends, identifying specific skill deficits, and understanding individual student needs. This intensive data analysis is further amplified by the establishment of district-wide data teams who meet collaboratively to address and target skills across grade levels and schools. This ensures systemic alignment and consistency in intervention strategies, driving continuous instructional improvement based on evidence and directly supporting the district's commitment to data-driven instruction.

You can learn more about DIBELS-8 and mCLASS Lectura at our event below.

Atlas serves as the online vehicle for the Red Bank Borough Public School’s curriculum mapping. Curriculum mapping is a calendar-based method of organizing and planning what is happening in district courses at specific points in the school year. Curricula are developed chronologically so teachers can plan interdisciplinary units with their colleagues.

When visiting the website, click All Curriculum in the upper left-hand corner and then All Courses. That link leads to a page where you can filter all curriculum guides in all content areas from Kindergarten through Grade 8. The foundation of all curricula are the NJ Student Learning Standards. These guides are “living documents” that evolve throughout the year.