Our Mission
- To provide extraordinary educational opportunities to children with learning disabilities, utilizing research-based intervention strategies and a highly tailored, arts-based learning environment, that is college preparatory in scope and sequence.
- To develop a center for educational excellence and professional development to disseminate best practices to educators throughout the region by providing access to the latest research-based curriculum, technology, and training.
- provide a rigorous quality education for a lifetime of learning
- provide intensive remediation and teaching of strategies
- employ all the art forms as central to the educative process and treat the arts as scholarly pursuits
- bring multi-sensory and experiential learning into each classroom
- provide as many mainstream school experiences as possible structured to best facilitate learning
- support and educate parents in regard to school and home issues
- engage in research to facilitate excellent instruction
- incorporate the latest technology into all programs
- keep staff highly challenged, in touch with brain research and its implications for teaching, designing new approaches to stay on the cutting edge of the field
- disseminate through workshops, lectures and seminars the result of its programs to others, including public and private schools that serve students who learn in both traditional and non-traditional ways
- allow and encourage the child's strengths to flourish while working on his/her areas of need
- challenging a child's mind while caring for the student's emotional well being
- replicate The Lab School model
Our Philosophy
The mission and philosophy is based on the belief that each child enrolled at The Academy In Manayunk (AIM) has the capacity to achieve academic success and to realize individual learning potential. Our experienced and committed educators are responsible for seeking out the routes by which each child learns, discovering strengths and interests, and exploring research-based techniques until the student achieves academic progress. In this way, each child is taught through his or her unique style of learning. The current research and practice in learning disabilities provides the promise that each child can learn.
The Academy In Manayunk is committed to developing a sense of inquiry and love of learning in each student. We focus on remediating the areas of reading, oral and written language, math and motor skills. Social studies and humanities are taught through a unique program incorporating art, music, drama and hands-on learning experiences. Our young people must also learn to function effectively in society using tailored social pragmatics and an understanding of how they best learn. Knowing the appropriate behavior in a given situation, how to approach the unknown and how to interact with other people constitute skills critical for success, that must be taught. All students are being prepared for return to the mainstream, be it in three, five, or more years. When the job is done, we know they will succeed! The focus of the high school is to prepare students for higher education and to assist them in acquiring the necessary 21st century workforce skills of problem solving, inquiry, and collaboration.
The quality of the staff that puts our philosophy into practice has to be extraordinarily high. The Academy In Manayunk prides itself on its top quality staff and unusually talented teachers who respect and deeply care for their students. Related services staff members (occupational therapists, speech/language pathologists, and psychologists) are an integral part of the academic team. There is an ongoing commitment to teacher training and advanced professional development in research-based curricula and programs. All teachers are certified in their unique areas of expertise.
