Arts Integration
New Yu Academy practices arts integrated curriculum. According to Arts Every Day, Arts integration is instruction that integrates content and skills from the arts—dance, music, theater, and the visual arts—with other core subjects. Arts integration occurs when there is a seamless blending of the content and skills of an art form with those of a co-curricular subject.
Arts integration is highly effective in engaging and motivating students. It supports the academic achievement and improved social behavior of students while enhancing school climate and parental involvement.
A rich array of arts skills and intellectual processes provide multiple entry points for students to approach content in other subject areas, while the arts instruction is likewise deepened through integration of content from the other subject areas. The arts provide students multiple modes for demonstrating learning and competency.
It enlivens the teaching and learning experience for entire school communities. At its best, arts integration is transformative for students, teachers, and communities. The imaginations and creative capacities of teachers and students are nurtured and their aspirations afforded many avenues for realization and recognition
Year-round Schooling
New Yu Academy is a year-round school. According the National Association of Year-Round Education, year-round education centers on reorganizing the school year to provide more continuous learning by breaking up the long summer vacation into shorter, more frequent vacations throughout the year. It does not eliminate the summer vacation, but reduces it and redistributes it as vacation or intersession time during the school year. Students attending a year-round school go to the same classes and receive the same instruction as students on a traditional calendar. The year-round calendar is organized into instructional periods and vacation weeks that are more evenly balanced across 12 months than the traditional school calendar. The balanced calendar minimizes the learning loss that occurs during a typical two to three month summer vacation. It can also minimize student and teacher burnouts since they will receive frequent breaks throughout the school year. Please see graph illustration below.
Block Scheduling
Block scheduling allows teachers to alternate reviewing subjects every other day for extended time periods rather than discussing all subjects every day for shorter periods. With the increased span of teaching time, longer cooperative learning activities can be completed in one class period. Students have more time for reflection and less information to process over the course of a school day. The students will become accustomed to alternating classes throughout the week, which is aligned with the courses at colleges and universities.
Individualized Growth Plans
The purpose of IGP is to personalize education for all students. Students have learning styles and needs. The plan will include an assessment of the students’ knowledge as compared to his or her peers, a set of personalized goals (spiritual, academic, and social) for the year and specific activities to move toward those goals, and a way (or ways) of monitoring that progress to know if it's all working. The principal, parent, student, and school social worker will work in collaboration to develop and update each student’s plan. The advisory teacher will be responsible for monitoring the plan.
ACADEMICS
ACADEMICS
