Academics

Skyuka Hall isn’t just a unique place for learning

Our Approach

Skyuka Hall re-imagines what education looks like for each child.  Every day is a new and exciting day in the lives and minds of the students we serve.  The entire faculty of Skyuka Hall is committed to creating a supportive environment where each of our students' academic, social, emotional, and spiritual needs are met.  We realize that every child is unique and learns in different ways, therefore we seek to create an individualized and personalized learning experience for each of them.  Our teachers use a curriculum that is skill-centered along with evidence-based instructional practices to best meet the learning needs of our students.  Our goal is to help students grow empowering skills, academic knowledge, confidence, and self-awareness.  We help them understand who they are as learners, the strategies that will help them, and how to advocate for themselves and what they need to succeed. 

 

Small Class Sizes

At Skyuka Hall, our low student-to-teacher ratios allow us to create a family-like environment among students, which, in turn, creates a supportive network among peers.  Small class size allows teachers to present challenging curriculum within functional and flexible groupings.  Every classroom lesson incorporates organizational strategies to help students manage and retain information.  Consistent routines, including frequent feedback and check-ins with students, facilitate their success.  Highlighting the development of these skills helps students manage their work and develop good structural and organizational habits for the future.  Focusing on structure and organization helps to eliminate barriers that can prevent successful learning such as grammar difficulties, slower processing speeds, struggles with maintaining focus and concentration, feelings of failure, or anxiety that might have come from past academic or social struggles.  Further, our Social & Emotional programming supports these efforts.

 

Individual Learning Profiles

Every student at Skyuka Hall has an individualized written document called an Individual Learning Profile.  The general purpose of an ILP is to provide specific accommodations, study skills, and strategies needed to maximize the student's performance.  Learning strengths and challenges are continually reviewed throughout the year, through both formal assessments and progress monitoring, and teaching approaches are modified and adapted to match each student's changing needs.  These ILPs are reviewed in formal family conferences during the fall and spring semesters.

 

Occupational & Speech/Language Therapy

Through federal funding for private and independent schools, the Hamilton County school system is able to provide occupational and speech/language therapy to those students who qualify for services.  In order to qualify, a student either received services previously through the public school system, or they go through a referral process from Skyuka Hall to assess whether services are needed. The testing for this is completed through the Hamilton County School System.  Services are provided by Stellar Therapy Services at our school at a designated time during the school day.

 

Accommodations

Kids with learning and thinking differences often face barriers to learning.  Accommodations are changes that help remove barriers and provide students with equal access to learning.  Accommodations change how students learn - not what they learn.  These changes can be in the way material is presented, the way a student completes assignments or examinations, the environment where learning takes place, and/or the time allowed for completing a task.  

At Syuka Hall all accommodations are based on individual student needs.  Faculty makes appropriate accommodations allowing untimed tests, oral testing, reading of assignments, etc. in accordance with ILP protocol to give each student full access to the academic curriculum and ensure successful and productive experiences.  Students are encouraged to take ownership of their learning by self-advocating when they need assistance with a concept and by making the best use of the resources around them.

Reading Intervention Program & Assessments

Meeting the needs of diverse readers is no small task.  In our classrooms, teachers address these various needs by using research-based curriculum materials and differentiated instruction.  Through the results of diagnostic assessments, we are able to identify those who are in need of more explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, decoding skills, fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary.  Skyuka Hall utilizes the HillRAP mastery-based intervention program which is administered through small group direct instruction.  This ongoing formative assessment allows the teacher to track each student's progress on a daily basis.  Reading intervention data is an integral part of the student's Individual Learning Profile, which ensures teachers from all content areas are meeting the individual needs of each student.

Multisensory Learning

Multisensory learning is the philosophy that most people learn best when using more than one sense in a particular lesson.  In addition to taste, sight, touch, smell, and hearing, this methodology incorporates movement into the senses as well.  When materials are presented in multiple ways, more opportunities are created for students to explore the information within the context of their individual strengths.  Through individualized, multisensory instruction, Skyuka teachers help students develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.  Students are encouraged in all subject areas to engage with the material in multiple ways.  Regardless of learning differences, the majority of students enjoy experiencing a variety of techniques in the learning process. Techniques that are used include:

Kinesthetic methods

  • Large gross motor movement activities: dancing, academic competitions, rhythmic recall
  • Games incorporating movement paired with various activities and songs related to concepts

Tactile methods

  • Using raised lined paper and textured objects for fine motor skills
  • Using clay, playdough, sand, etc
  • Using various manipulatives for math and other subject areas

Visual reasoning and learning methods

  • Posters and models
  • Use of color for highlighting
  • Graphic organizers, outlining and annotating texts
  • Student created art, text, images, pictures, and videos
  • Visual methods and strategies

Auditory methods

  • Music, songs, instruments, rhyming, and language games
  • Audioboks, peer-assisted reading, paired reading, and text-to-speech
  • Video or film with accompanying audio