Curriculum & Culture

What does academic success look like at iLEAD Agua Dulce, utilizing the iLEAD Schools educational model?

We believe in focusing on the whole child and promoting social and emotional growth, because education is about more than just high test scores. iLEAD is also committed to incorporating technology and real-world experiences that bring classroom learning to life.

The Core of iLEAD Education

Utilizing Project-Based Learning (PBL), iLEAD focuses on deeper learning practices that motivate and challenge our learners, allowing them to apply what they learn in one subject area to situations in another. This is just one more way classwork relates to life beyond the classroom.

Deeper Learning

Mastery of academic content is critical to children’s future success in college, careers, and life. It’s the foundation of deeper-learning classrooms. Our learners have multiple opportunities to engage with high-level content through our robust programs.

An iLEAD education focuses on the following:

Mastery of Core Academic Content: Learners lay their academic foundation in subjects such as reading, writing, arts, math, and science, understanding essential principles and procedures, recalling facts and drawing on their knowledge to complete tasks.

Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving: Our learners understand how to construct effective arguments utilizing their critical, analytical, and creative skills. They know how to come up with solutions to complex problems.

Collaboration: Learners embrace teamwork, communicating, and understanding multiple viewpoints to cooperate and achieve shared goals.

Effective Communication: Learners communicate effectively in writing and oral presentations. They structure information in meaningful ways, listen to and give feedback, and construct messages for particular audiences.

Self-Directed Learning: Learners develop an ability to set goals, monitor their own progress, and reflect on their strengths and areas for improvement. They learn to see setbacks as opportunities for growth, and to be more adaptive.

Growth Mind-set: Learners with a growth mind-set believe in themselves. They trust their abilities and believe their hard work will pay off; they persist to overcome obstacles. In the process, they also learn from and support each other, and see the relevance of their schoolwork to the real world and their own future success.

How We Do It
There are five key pillars to the iLEAD approach:

Individualized Learning Plans (ILPs) personalize goals and instruction for each child. We believe that learning should be interest-driven, peer-supported, and focused on powerful outcomes.

We offer a dynamic hands-on classroom approach in which learners actively explore real-world challenges to acquire deeper knowledge. Research shows that learners’ retention of content and their attitude toward and interest in learning increase with project-based learning.

Academic achievement is only one component of a learner’s education at iLEAD. We also support the learner’s development of emotional intelligence, life skills, and community engagement.

At the end of the year, both facilitators and learners give their own Showcases of Learning, based on their achievements and growth toward those particular goals they set at the start of the school year.

In multiage environments, learners are able to work on skills and concepts that are appropriate based on where they fall in the learning continuum, regardless of their age. Additionally, multiage social interaction promotes leadership and positive social-emotional behaviors. Older learners may model problem-solving and communication skills for their younger peers and vice versa.

Multiage education also allows each learner to spend at least two consecutive years with the same facilitator. This process results in seamless transitions from one year to the next.