Classical UMS = )

[laughing lioness]

My dream of starting a classical UMS is taking shape. Looks like we'll launch a pilot this fall with between 10-20 kids. I am so jazzed. The pilot group of parents is soo on-board with classical, loves the UMS model and is already recruiting families, and brainstorming creatively in order to overcome some of the obstacles. Woohoo!!

[JennifersLost]

My mind has gone blank. What is UMS?

[Michelle in AL]

I'd love to hear details, what grades will you cover? How did you acquire a building, what classes will you offer, do you have a teaching background? What a fabulous opportunity! Congrats!

[Tap]

I was involved in the first five years with a public school/homeschool that was set up with university style scheduling. If you have any questions about what worked for us in certain circumstances feel free to ask here or pm me.

 

Here is an example of the types of problems we had over the years:

 

Kids like my dd10 (5 when it opened) were allowed to take more advanced classes based on prior academic performance and social behavior. It was nice at the time for her to be in her true level of classes (taking 3/4 level classes in 2nd grade)...what could be the down side? The problem we ran into with this, was that she ran out of classes to take when she got older :0(. There were always the core classes, but for all the fun classes in 4th grade, she had already taken them in previous years. The fifth/sixth grade classes weren't a good fit for her because due to scheduling the 4th grade core classes were at the same time as the 5/6 fun classes. So, while she could have taken core classes...that would have been it. Our school was set up for grades 1-6 on Mon/Wed/Thurs and 7-12 on Tues/Wed/Fri. So the kids in 6th grade could only take 6th grade classes unless they wanted to come on two days for cores and the other 3 days for fun classes. The ability to take advanced classes was great for the younger or new students but led to established students leaving due to this lack of fun classes.

 

 

One thing that helped was to have the teachers of fun classes to plan their curriculum in units instead of years, with a two year rotation of. An example that was very successful, was our early elementary Spanish teacher teaching units like 'foods', 'homes (names of furnishing/rooms etc)', 'emotions', etc. She had 8 units, and this allowed any kid to start at any time, or to come and go from the class without being lost if they returned. This obviously wouldn't work for the older classes but it was perfect for the younger kids. Art and a fun history class were taught the same way.