Summer school is often a considerably different experience from that of class during a regular school year. The actual class time is quite limited and can actually be counted in a limited number of hours. If you run a half day of summer school for two weeks, you have approximately 40 hours total instructional time. If you are running a full day for a month, then that time is doubled to 80. Either number is far less than the 1,400 hours possible for the average American school year. Whatever your curriculum is, it needs to be accomplished within a very limited time.

There are numerous possibilities as to how your summer school curriculum will be handled. You will hopefully be informed by your administrator as to which direction you should take, but summer school usually gives teachers a very free hand in lesson planning. If there is no direction from administration, it is an excellent time to show leadership and collaborate on a plan with your fellow teachers. Curriculum in summer school is usually determined by intent.

Remedial curriculum

This is a very common sort of curriculum and almost synonymous with summer school. This curriculum should focus on basic skills for the age-level group you are teaching. Younger students should focus on phonics skills, reading fluency, basic writing and grammar skills and basic math facts such as addition and subtraction. Older students should learn the "super six reading strategies" and writing a variety of sentences, as well multiplication facts and division practice. Higher-level students will need work on critical thinking skills, composing writing in given formats, mathematical functions and basic algebraic equations, as well as basic knowledge of historical and scientific concepts.

Another approach to remedial curriculum is to focus on the standards that are frequently tested for the cohort of students being taught. The list of frequently tested standards will take some research, but there is an excellent chance that your administrator already has such a list. This helps focus instruction and has immediate impact on testable student achievement. Some would argue that this is "teaching to the test," but as standardized tests continue to evolve every year and increasing importance is attached to them, they become the measure of student success, and addressing them directly is legitimate.

Enrichment curriculum

Another approach to summer school curriculum is one of enrichment. This one gives the greatest amount of freedom to teachers, who can design a curriculum around a particular subject such as cooking, creating comics, solving CSI crimes or any number of fun or interesting topics. The concept behind enrichment is that students lose achievement over the summer months, and any schooling can negate this loss and even increase scores. Enrichment classes have the advantage of attracting both high numbers of students and talented and resourceful teachers, keeping students coming back.

Each teacher of an enrichment class essentially writes his or her own curriculum. A wise administrator will ask for lesson plans ahead of time. Teachers should make concentrated efforts to include reading and math skills in such a curriculum. Enrichment classes provide excellent opportunities for assignments with a high Depth of Knowledge and that involve higher thinking skills. It is an excellent idea to include numerous long-term projects and experiential learning such as field trips and community service.

Programmed curriculum

Your school might have a programmed curriculum for summer school such as SES tutoring or Achieva. Such a program usually involves some sort of assessment such as a DIBEL test, followed by a prescriptive program that will probably place students into ability groups. Lessons can be scripted down to the very way you say them. These programs can have good results but are very constrictive and do not necessarily promote a high level of student engagement. The challenge for the teacher is to make the curriculum as engaging and interesting as possible. Results will be monitored in such a program. Encourage your administrator to share your results so you can gauge success and gain feedback for improvement.

Assessment-driven curriculum

The better aspects of a programmed curriculum involve using assessment to drive instruction. The best sort of remedial instruction should have an assessment element that gives detailed information about possible learning objectives for students. Many schools use a "common assessment" of some sort throughout the year, and this data can easily be used for this purpose. This assessment can be used to provide a basis to collaborate with other teachers so that students can be placed into flexible groups to serve individual needs.

Field trips

Any summer school will probably feature field trips. These are excellent opportunities for experiential learning. The field trip's subject should be a focus of study the prior week. If you're going to a planetarium, study the constellations. If you're going to a zoo, study animal classification. This helps provide context and turns the field trip into a rich learning experience.

Summer school curriculum can be much more malleable and briefer than regular school curriculum. With preparation and collaboration, this can be a deeply satisfying experience for the teacher and the student alike.