Academics

Consistent with our mission of ensuring that all of our students secure the academic knowledge and skills to prepare them for the nation’s finest high schools and colleges, Foundation Academy students learn a rigorous academic curriculum grounded in the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards (NJCCCS) .

Foundation Academy’s academic program includes the following areas:

• Language Arts
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social Studies
• Spanish
• Physical Education & Health
• Visual & Performing Arts
• Foundations of Citizenship
• Assessment
• The School Day

Foundation Academy’s language arts curriculum is reading and writing intensive. The focus of our language arts classes is reading, writing, speaking and listening. Language arts skills are interconnected and require constant reinforcement. As such, students are taught these skills at their fundamental level as well as in the context of practical and relevant materials. Language arts skills are vital to all aspects of learning and life. Therefore, all Foundation Academy courses reinforce the skills taught in language arts, including reading comprehension, writing and speaking. Students are encouraged to explore the English language through reading and writing. Reading for personal fulfillment outside the classroom is always recommended and rewarded. Students studying language arts at Foundation Academy are required to read daily.

Language arts courses at Foundation Academy enable students to work together and independently to comprehend texts, novels, media and other sources. Students read a wide variety of socially and culturally diverse works. These works include: poems, short stories, fables, tall tales, folk tales, novels, drama, essays, speeches, autobiographies and biographies. Studying this wide variety of texts helps the students expand their knowledge of world cultures and their understanding of literature. Students are also exposed to works of classic as well as modern literature. In addition, the language arts courses improve the students’ reading comprehension through a thorough textual analysis. The texts are also placed in their historical and cultural context, to provide a deeper and more thorough understanding thereof.

The students at Foundation Academy continually develop their writing skills. Each year, the students build upon these skills in order to become capable of writing sophisticated and organized pieces of work. The writing aspect of the language arts courses includes instruction on the recursive writing process, organization within paragraphs and over an entire essay, grammar, spelling, mechanics, punctuation, vocabulary and style. Students are encouraged to explore literature, as well as their own writing, with insight and true feeling.

The students’ speaking and listening skills are assessed through a variety of methods and creative assignments allowing students with different learning styles and comfort levels to find success. Students are required to present many projects throughout the year that entertain, inform, and persuade an audience. Students will also be required to participate in group discussion. Furthermore, Foundation Academy provides students with the skills necessary to evaluate and analyze resources effectively and fairly.

The language arts courses at Foundation Academy are intense and thorough courses that provide students with the skill necessary to be successful in high school, college and life.

Foundation Academy mathematics courses prepare students for higher-level math courses at the high school and college level. Students at Foundation Academy Charter School study the following mathematical concepts: number sense; computation; pre-algebra; measurement; fractions and decimals; ratios, percents and proportions; probability and statistics; and geometry. Throughout their careers at Foundation Academy, students focus on real-world applications of mathematical processes and learn how to integrate mathematics into their daily lives. This makes mathematics seem more useful and less abstract, and therefore easier to learn.

The science curriculum at Foundation Academy emphasizes the processes and skills needed to understand the scientific method and its implications.. The fundamental skills learned and practiced include: observation, comparison, measurement, communication, classification, prediction, recognizing temporal and spatial relationships, inference, use of models, data interpretation, hypothesis, control of variables and experimentation. These skills are valuable and reinforced across the disciplines. In addition to learning the scientific method, Foundation Academy students learn content in the areas of earth science, chemistry, physics, space science and environmental science. Specifically, students will consider scientific processes; structure and properties of matter; chemical reactions; pollution; the Earth's properties and materials; how scientists study the Earth; weather and climate; the Earth's constructive processes, the Earth's destructive processes; the Earth, Moon, Sun system; the Solar System, stars, galaxies and the Universe.

The science curriculum focuses on applying scientific methods to solving problems. The science courses reinforce critical thinking skills to aid in problem solving. These skills include: analysis, synthesis, effective expression of ideas, application, generating questions and evaluation. These skills also serve as a bridge between disciplines. The science curriculum uses, and thereby reinforces, math and technology skills. In addition, students consider the history of science. Current scientific thinking is contrasted with earlier, perhaps outmoded ideas. Historical figures in the scientific realm are also studied. Using historical science in this manner places the facts and processes learned in a broader, relative context.

Technology tools are used to reinforce and extend curriculum concepts at all grade levels. Some skills are learned in greater depth and applied to more abstract concepts as the students progress.

The Foundation Academy social studies program prepares students for high school and college level classes in United States history, world history and geography. Each year, students focus on the historical aspects of a topic, as well as the civic, economic and geographical strands related to such topics.

Understanding physical, human and environmental geography is vital to understanding major events of United States and world history. Geography places the “what” of history into a “where.” From there, students are able to envision an even larger concept and form theories as to “why” history occurred as it did. Foundation Academy reinforces geography through the study of history, culture, war, natural resources and environment.

Foundation Academy’s social studies curriculum gives students a thorough understanding of history, law, civics and geography, preparing them with the skills necessary to evaluate current events, political structures and philosophies. The ability to evaluate such concepts allows Foundation Academy’s students to become active and engaged citizens of both the United States and the world. Foundation Academy students will be able to discuss and debate historical topics both within and outside the classroom, as the Social Studies curriculum provides them with the tools necessary to form and defend an opinion.

Foundation Academy’s social studies curriculum is reading and writing intensive. Students are required to research and write essays and reports. Students are evaluated not only on the content of the essays and reports, but also on style, organization and mechanics as well.

Foundation Academy also provides its students with an introduction to the art and music of various cultures, helping students analyze the cultural, sociological and historical aspects of a culture. This interdisciplinary focus connects the New Jersey state standard and the teaching of democratic citizenship through the humanities.

In order to prepare the students of Foundation Academy for life beyond middle school, each student studies Spanish. Since world language courses are required at the high school level and often in college, Foundation Academy students begin language studies in the fifth grade. The students study the fundamentals of Spanish, as well as the culture and the history of the people who speak Spanish around the world, including Latino-Americans. Students will integrate their abilities to communicate important information, to understand additional cultural foundations of the Spanish-speaking world and to compare such cultural attributes to their own, to connect the information learned in Spanish class with knowledge gained in other core subjects, to expand their geographic knowledge of Spanish-speaking countries, and to begin to make contact with Spanish-speaking communities both in the Trenton area and in other parts of the world.

Students study the culture of Spanish-speaking individuals and historical figures in Spain and Latin America. The students begin work on grammar and reading texts and other printed media in the language they are studying. Students at all levels are assessed with oral tests along with in class assignments, homework, class participation and written assignments to evaluate their learning and understanding of Spanish.

At Foundation Academy, students learn to practice lifelong fitness as well as basic skills in individual and team sports. The students become more physically fit, as well as learning the benefits of fitness, the rules of various sports and the benefits of teamwork. Teamwork will be a major theme at Foundation Academy. The social rules of teamwork and sportsmanship are taught and emphasized throughout the school. These rules are emphasized in physical education class, thereby unifying physical education with the overall curriculum.. Competency in athletics leads to confidence and mental well being. Therefore, the physical education classes focus not only on the physical but also the mental fitness of our students. Students are not evaluated solely on their level of performance; rather, they are evaluated primarily on their effort and improvement. Ballroom Dancing instruction is a major component of Physical Education at Foundation Academy Charter School. Students learn at least three different dances, as well as receiving instruction in etiquette and social interaction.

To help promote lifelong health, Foundation Academy health classes provide students with the information necessary to make healthy choices. Students study nutrition, the body and body systems. They then learn of physical health, including the changes that will take place in their bodies, the dangers of drug abuse, and the potential dangers and profound consequences of sexual activity. The students also learn about mental fitness and the benefits of stress management and emotional control. The students are made aware of the social institutions in their community that can provide assistance during a time of need. Foundation Academy Health courses emphasize the importance and benefits of a healthy lifestyle to help students achieve healthy minds and bodies.

Students at Foundation Academy engage in at least 150 minutes of Physical Education/Health Education per week.

Students at Foundation Academy participate in Music classes throughout the year. All of the students study a string instrument, learn to sing in harmony and explore the many genres of music.

Performance arts, including dance, are incorporated into the Physical Education classes. Students learn the fundamentals of expression through movement during these classes.

Teachers at Foundation Academy incorporate the visual and performing arts curriculum into their lessons and assignments. Aligning with the standards, the teachers include artistic perception, creative expression, historical and cultural context, valuing and connections, relations, and applications. The social studies curriculum explores the art of various cultures, focusing on how art impacted people during the era being studied and what it reveals about those historical individuals today. The social studies courses also examine art history as it relates to the various periods and cultures being studied. The language arts program includes drama, poetry, and other forms of dramatic expression in the lessons.

At Foundation Academy, students are required to take Foundations of Citizenship. During this course, students learn character education, career education, and consumer, family and life skills. The students engage in this course weekly. Foundation Academy teaches more than “facts and figures.” Foundations of Citizenship helps students develop the career awareness, citizenship and life skills needed to become well-adjusted, participatory members of society. Students leave Foundation Academy with the social skills necessary to apply what they learned and succeed in whatever future endeavors they pursue.

Shortly after a student enrolls in Foundation Academy, he/she takes tests in math, language arts, social studies, science and Spanish. These tests are designed to provide the faculty with a clear understanding of the initial strengths and weaknesses of each student, class and grade.

Using this data, the faculty develops instructional plans to ensure that each student quickly improves his/her skills. Many students enter Foundation Academy behind in their skill development. Our initial assessments allow us to develop a plan to most quickly bring all students up to grade level and therefore prepare them for the challenging curriculum Foundation Academy delivers.

Every six weeks, students are further assessed using what we call Interim Formative Assessments (IFAs). These standardized assessments are designed to allow us to carefully track student progress toward mastering state standards.

In addition, since classroom learning is designed to improve students’ ability to address issues and solve problems that cross academic disciplines, students are required to submit two inter-disciplinary projects each year. These projects require students to answer challenging questions developed collaboratively by the faculty prior to the start of each school year. The questions are tailored to each grade and the specific NJCCCS for that grade, and thus they require students to employ the skills and knowledge they are learning at that time to solve a problem or answer a question. A team of faculty members reviews the submitted assignments, and a single grade is given for each project that is recorded in multiple classes on the student’s report card.

The typical day of a Foundation Academy student is as follows: