Curriculum Maps

Curriculum, instruction, and assessment are essential components of a quality education. A curriculum map promotes consistency of instruction throughout the district by outlining what is taught, how it may be taught, and when it is taught. Maps focus on academics as well as the 21st century skills of collaboration, problem solving, and creativity. This balance is important since students are working toward secondary success and lifelong learning.

WHSD teachers are in a continuous cycle of creating and revising detailed curriculum maps. The curriculum framework at Westmont Hilltop School District consists of the following components: Big Ideas and Essential Questions; PA Core Standards, Academic Standards, and Eligible Content; Vocabulary; Student Target Outcomes and Goals; Instructional Strategies and Activities; Assessment Evidence; Differentiation; and Resources. Over the course of the next several years, teachers will be updating maps to include the addition of learning intentions, success criteria, and writing components including focus correction areas (FCAs).  

WHSD strives to create and maintain curriculum that is:

• collaboratively designed,
• standards-aligned,
• coordinated and connected across grade levels and content areas resulting in vertical and horizontal alignment,
• informed by research and student learning data,
• focused on high expectations for student learning including being mindful of individual student learning needs and pathways,
• regularly developed, amended, and improved,
• aligned with assessments and quality instruction, and
• a guide for all stakeholders.

WHSD strives for instruction that provides:

• a purposeful learning intention that is known to students,
• productive struggle, relevance, and student engagement,
• alignment to standards, and
• student learning.

WHSD strives to have assessments that:

• measure student achievement and growth along a learning progression,
• demonstrate evidence of meeting success criteria toward standards, and
• inform students, parents, teachers, and district.

Deviation from a published curriculum map does occur, dependent upon the needs of the students. However, changes will be documented on the teacher’s working curriculum map. Consequently, updates of published maps will occur on a regular basis.

Links to Standards:

• PA Core Assessment Anchors and Eligible Content Link for Grades 3-8 ELA and Mathematics
• PA Core Assessment Anchors and Eligible Content Link for Grades 3-8 Science
• PA Assessment Anchors and Alternate Eligible Content Link for Grades 3-8, 11 ELA, Grades 3-8, 11 Mathematics, and Grades 4, 8, 11 Science
• PA Core Standards Link
• PA Academic Standards Link
• PA English Language Development Standards Link
• PA Early Childhood Education Standards Link
• Additional Standards Link
• Assessment Anchors/Eligible Content for Algebra I, Algebra II, Literature, Geometry, Biology, and English Composition Courses Link