Advanced Curriculum

Moving Toward a New Vision of Advanced Curriculum

We believe that the best educational experiences for our students are designed by the Blair faculty who work with them every day. We want students to demonstrate their ability to handle advanced coursework in a greater variety of disciplines. Furthermore, Blair students benefit most when they have more tangible evidence of their learning to understand how what they’ve learned will transfer to their future pursuits. That’s why Blair is redesigning its advanced curriculum offerings to more closely align with the School’s vision for its graduates.

This redesign of our program will allow us to build a more comprehensive, engaging and distinguished program in place of AP courses in the years ahead.

Quote from Kathleen Abels, Director of Admission at Haverford College

Frequently Asked Questions

How will Blair’s advanced curriculum differ from APs?

With the goals of giving students a greater sampling of college-level work and ownership of coursework with room to explore with their teachers, starting in fall 2024, Blair will offer two types of advanced curriculum courses:

Advanced Survey classes designed to align with first-year college courses in core subjects like Calculus, Economics, Java, Biology or U.S. History, for example, will introduce students to these disciplines at the equivalent level of first-year college courses.
Advanced Seminar courses will take a deep dive into a particular theme, skill or discipline along the same lines as Blair’s current Integrated Science Research (ISR) program. These courses will be developed by the Blair faculty members who know our students well and are uniquely prepared to challenge them. This catalog will also update regularly to reflect the ideas and concepts most relevant and essential to our students.

We are intentionally and strategically expanding students’ access to advanced curriculum and increasing the number of subjects, experiences and skills in our courses that deserve “advanced curriculum” credentialing. We believe students should have more tangible evidence of their learning to encourage the transfer of knowledge to their future pursuits, and we are fortunate to have put the mechanisms and resources in place to make this shift while maintaining quality and rigor.

Our advanced curriculum will go beyond credit or placement and offer a greater sampling of college-level work and ownership of coursework with room for exploration. Beyond credit and placement (which we are seeing fewer colleges and universities grant), APs are not the only way that advanced curriculum has been indicated; that said, it has become the most common without a very good definition of what rigor means. This is why we are making plans to design and deliver an advanced curriculum that would provide a greater sampling of college-level work created by faculty who are passionate about their respective fields.

What does an advanced curriculum look like in terms of course offerings?

Are other schools moving in this direction?

How will college outcomes be affected by this transition?

As more colleges stop accepting AP credit and come to understand the value of non-AP curricular sequencing in terms of rigor, student investment and outcomes, transitioning to an advanced curriculum will not affect students’ college choices in the application process—other than creating more opportunities for students to follow passions and look at institutions they otherwise might not consider. As long as we are clear about which students are pursuing our most rigorous courses in our college profile, we don’t anticipate this change affecting the college process for Blair students.

How will we communicate this change to colleges and prospective families?

In our materials, we will make sure prospective families and colleges understand our curricular sequence, our most rigorous offerings, and student investment and outcomes. We will also keep turning to our advisory board of nine colleges who have partnered with us (Elon University, Georgetown University, Grinnell College, Lehigh University, Middlebury College, New York University-Shanghai, Penn State University and Spelman) and will help to guide our transition.

What made now the right time to make this transition?

Navigating the pandemic reinforced that the best educational experiences at Blair live at the intersection of student enthusiasm and community-based experiences designed by faculty invested in adolescent growth and experience. Giving ourselves permission to explore advanced work at the high school level is a natural extension of Blair’s longstanding mission to know our students. In this initiative, we intend to develop a cycle of ongoing curriculum development anchored in transferable skills and habits of mind, such as communication skills, critical analysis, research and inquiry, performance, design, collaborative practice, etc….While the courses themselves will update and grow, our targets remain relatively the same and we have put mechanisms in place over the last few years that make this shift more natural: Our faculty are leaning into the fact that curriculum design is part of teaching; we have provided our teachers with the resources and space in the Sigety Faculty Summer Institute to prepare for curricular design and execution; and our department meetings give faculty the dedicated time to do the legwork required. The introduction of our J-term program is part of this ongoing vision, with three years of quality, student learning experiences offering a wealth of inspiration for deeper learning in the advanced curriculum.

How will Blair note our curricular sequence and most rigorous offerings to prospective families and colleges?

The academic and college counseling offices will work closely to ensure the curriculum, specifically those options representing the most rigorous courses available, are clearly delineated on student transcripts and records. A revised course catalog with clear differentiation between advanced and standard level courses will also support students and their academic monitors with annual course planning.

How will Blair maintain rigor and quality?

In collaboration with the Independent Curriculum Group, advanced course teachers at Blair established a set of standardized curriculum principles that all current and future advanced courses will meet. Advanced survey courses will take advantage of available information from universities to align skills and content taught in our courses with similar introductory offerings. Working with our college counseling advisory board, we will gather feedback about the design and impact of our new advanced courses, which will be reviewed twice annually to ensure student learning targets are being met. Students taking these courses will maintain and reflect upon the work they’ve done to understand their own growth in these subjects.

As with all Blair courses, we will establish standard curriculum principles and discipline-specific student outcomes that all advanced courses must meet. Our academic and college counseling offices will reach out to colleges and peer schools, and, working with our college counseling advisory board, ensure admission officers understand the rigor and quality of courses at Blair. We will also regularly review our course proposal process, which has been redesigned with this transition in mind. Student portfolio reviews will also be important.

What is the transition timeline?

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