Academics
A strong foundation. A personalized path.
A rigorous curriculum should give students both a strong academic foundation and the flexibility to progress according to individual readiness.
Ours is intentionally personalized, student-centered, and competency-based in reading, writing, and mathematics, where students move through carefully sequenced skills according to demonstrated understanding rather than age or the calendar. Everything else is learned in community. The result is a program that is academically rigorous and deeply responsive to the learner.
- GradesPre-K 3 through 12th, on one campus in Kendall
- MasteryApproximately 85 to 90% of essential skills before a student moves on
- DiplomaA 24-credit high school diploma, with a Writing Seminar in each of the four years
- ReadingStructured, multi-sensory, and sequential, opening into literature when a student is ready
- In communityScience, social studies, world languages, physical education, art, and performing arts
One curriculum, two ways of learning
Across every division, the Killian Oaks curriculum combines two complementary instructional models.
Personalized, student-centered learning
Reading, writing, and mathematics follow personalized pathways based on demonstrated readiness. Through ongoing formative assessment, teachers identify strengths, uncover gaps, adjust instruction, and decide when a student is ready for a greater challenge.
Students who need more instruction receive it. Students who show readiness are encouraged to move ahead. Progress is determined by understanding, not seat time.
Learning in community
Science, social studies, world languages, physical education, art, performing arts, and electives are taught in collaborative group settings built on inquiry, discussion, experimentation, creative expression, and shared academic experiences.
Students learn to engage with different perspectives, contribute to discussions, work together, and apply foundational skills within a larger academic community.
The divisions
A child can start in Pre-K 3 and walk the same oak-lined path to a 24-credit diploma, with the teacher who taught them to read there to watch them graduate.
Primary School
Where curiosity becomes a love of learning: foundational literacy, numeracy, and language, and the first habits of learning in community.
+ 1-5Lower School
Skills become fluency, reading opens into literature when a student is ready, and physical education is every day.
+ 6-8Middle School
The formal study of literature, analytical writing, abstract mathematics, and the executive skills to manage it all.
+ 9-12High School
A 24-credit diploma, a Writing Seminar in every one of the four years, and the independence college demands.
+Teaching students how to learn
Long-term success depends on a student's ability to manage the process of learning, so executive functioning is taught inside every class rather than in a single course.
Teachers explicitly model, teach, and reinforce the strategies below, then gradually expect students to use them on their own. In the earlier grades teachers provide significant structure. By high school, students are expected to manage deadlines, organize materials, prepare for assessments, plan written work, and recognize when they need support.
- Time management and planning
- Organization of materials, physical and digital
- Study skills that go beyond rereading notes
- Highlighting and active reading
- Note-taking and outlining
- Creating their own study guides
- Managing research and multi-step assignments
- Metacognition, and knowing how to ask for help
The whole student
Killian Oaks is committed to the intellectual, social, emotional, physical, creative, and ethical development of each student.
Arts and physical education
Art, performing arts, physical education, and electives are part of the program in every division, and Lower School students have physical education every day.
Leadership and public speaking
Students organize their thoughts, express ideas clearly, speak with confidence before others, and accept age-appropriate opportunities to lead.
After the last bell
Homework Club with Killian Oaks teachers until 5:00 p.m., after-school tutorials in every subject, and clubs from instrumental music to basketball from 3:00.
+We'd love to meet your child
The best way to know whether Killian Oaks is right for your child is to walk the campus on a school day, watch a lesson, and talk with the people who would teach them. Tell us your child's grade and we'll set a time.