Oak Meadow offers a “complete” curriculum for children of nursery school age through the end of high school, all from a Christian perspective and a distance learning program.
Philosophy
Oak Meadow’s philosophy includes five main points, according to their website. They offer a standards-based approach. They believe that education is not just for the mind. They are grounded in child development. They accommodate students with different learning styles. They structure lessons to reinforce community.
Subjects
In PreK – 8, the curriculum can be printed or obtained through an online delivery format that is not interactive, but simply allows easy printing. In First grade, students have Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Science, Art, Music, Crafts, Movement, and Health. The four core subjects of Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science, continue through 8th grade. It’s not clear from the samples what electives are available at each level, though Grade 7 has a craft kit.
In grade 9-12, Students are required to take the following for graduation:
- 4 English
- 3 Math
- 4 Social Studies
- 3 Science
- 1 Fine Arts
- .5 Health
- .5 Fitness/PE
- 5 Electives including Psychology, Photography, Short Fiction, Chess, Independent Study, or choose from the languages of Latin, Spanish, French, and German.
Nineteen AP Courses are offered through Aventa Learning, which has an agreement with Oak Meadow. An assortment of Technology Courses are also offered.
Sample Review
• Curriculum Option
There are two available types of samples: pdf downloads and online demos. Here is a brief review of each for 8th grade.
http://oakmeadow.com/curriculum/overviews/8ov.pdf
In English they read a collection that includes some more recent books than other programs, but several (Lord of the Flies, The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) are usually read by older students. There is an absurd assignment on page 15 of the sample in which students are supposed to identify foreshadowing in chapters 1-3 ofA Wrinkle in Time and “guess” at its meaning and at what “will happen later in the book.” Most of the time, it is not until the later thing actually occurs that we recognize earlier elements as foreshadowing, so this assignment is backwards.
Further on (page 17), the misuse of literally as an intensifier when the meaning is actually figurative is explained. Immediately following, a segue sentence reads, “Another word that suffers similar abuse, though not quite so pervasive, is unique.” First of all, the phrase “though not quite so pervasive” is ungrammatical: pervasivelywould work. Second of all, the addition of a modifier to unique as if it was not an absolute is certainly bad usage, but it is not “similar abuse” – it’s quite different. Drawing this parallel is not educationally helpful.
http://www.oakmeadow.com/curriculum/demo_select.cfm
In an explanation of Mass for Grade 8, it says of Archimedes that, “He found that the bigger something was, the higher the water level went up the insides of the tub.” This is wrong and shows a misunderstanding of the word mass, which does not mean “size” in a physics context. If you put something large and very light and something small and very heavy into the tub, it is the smaller object that will make the water level higher, not the bigger one.
Qualifications of Curriculum Writers
It is not clear who wrote the curriculum or what their qualifications are.
Accreditation
Oak Meadow’s K-8 program is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Elementary Schools, which is a commission of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. The 9-12 program is accredited by the Commission on Secondary and Middle Schools, which is a commission of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. In Vermont, Oak Meadow is an Approved Independent School.
Cost
The school tuition is $1,500 for K-4 and $1,860 for 5-8. High school is $875 per printed material course or $585 online. AP courses and technical courses are $950 each.
Source
http://www.oakmeadow.com/index.cfm
