Key members of our teaching and administrative staff have been thoughtfully at work collaboratively working to develop a clearer, more robust K-12 Bible curriculum linked across all campuses. We have included this as a major goal of our new strategic plan as it will help us to more clearly identify for current and new families: What is distinctive about an LCS education? Often, when interviewing or touring new families, this is the question parents and caregivers most want to know about. How do we teach Bible? How much? What is the focus?
We hope to soon complete a document that makes this transparent and accessible for everyone, and which establishes confidence that as a BC independent school we deliver one of the best curricula in the world – the BC Curriculum https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca. But, we are also distinctively Christian in how we teach it, and we integrate an additional board-approved K-12 Bible curriculum program that is designed to foster faith and spiritual growth in students. Our curriculum should help students learn who is God, who am I, and what is my purpose and calling?
A team of teachers and administrators began work in the early spring on revising our curriculum and trying to bring greater linkages between each of the campuses. The starting point was to develop a new draft K-12 Learner Profile which was completed in June. Any locally board-approved curriculum that exists outside the official BC curriculum is required to contain certain elements, including core competencies (what do students do?), big ideas (what do students understand?), and content (what do students know?).
Our draft profile emphasizes six core competences we believe characterizes the Christian life. The profile also captures our Foundational Belief Statements of our constitution, the Biblical through-lines and original educational philosophy of the school:
- ethical discernment
- creativity & connection-making
- service & citizenship
- engaged & faithful
- purposeful & disciplined
- grace-filled communicator
Our next step is to develop greater guidance for Christian teaching practices which support the nurturing of our K-12 Learner Profile, and then to begin reworking and revising our K-12 Bible course content and learning outcomes to ensure we are being intentional in our teaching to offer a learning experience that is authentically Christian.
