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Curriculum Framework Overview

The Curriculum Framework at Northern York County School District consists of five main components: Essential Questions and Key Understandings; Focus Standards; Common Misconceptions; Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions; and Assessment.  These frameworks were created by teams of grade-level teachers from across the district. 

Framework Components:

  • Essential Questions and Key Understandings:
    • These questions assist students and teachers by providing guiding questions to focus instruction, develop meaning, and plan for assessment.
    • These include important understandings we want student to realize and remember long after instruction ends
  • Focus and Important Standards:
    • Focus standards are carefully selected grade/course-specific standards that students must know and be able to do by the end of each school year in order to be prepared to enter the next grade level or course. They provide teachers with a sharp and consistent focus for in-depth instruction and related assessment.
  • Common Student Misconceptions:
    • These are common misundertandings, errors, or confusion experienced by students
    • Identifying these misconceptions assists teachers in planning to assist in the development of proper conceptions
  • Knowledge and Concepts:
    • This defines what we want students to know
    • Related to content mastery
  • Skills and Comptetencies:
    • This defines what students should be able to do
    • Focuses on application of knowledge
  • Dispositions and Practices:
    • These are the practices or habits we look to develop through the content, delivery, and assessment of the unit
    • Overtime, these will be aligned with our Portrait of a Graduate

Scope and Sequence

A scope and sequence establishes consistency of instruction throughout the district by providing clear guidance on what your children’s teachers should teach and when they should teach it. It lays out the order of and timing for units during the course of the year to ensure that all standards will be taught and assessed.