WHAT WE TEACH
Arabic, Deen,
and in between.
وَقُلْ رَبِّ زِدْنِي عِلْمًا
“…and say, ‘My Lord, increase me in knowledge.’”
20:114
The program has three parts. Two of them have names the school chose carefully. The third has a name the school gave up on choosing, which turns out to be the most accurate one.
01
العربية
Arabic
The goal is not fluency in a modern spoken language. The goal is that a child can open the Quran and read it without an intermediary. Everything in this half of the program serves that.
Classes are grouped by a placement test rather than by age, so a nine-year-old who reads well and a thirteen-year-old who is starting out are each in the right room.
Recitation, taught through the Noorani method
Basic Quranic vocabulary
The shorter suras, committed to memory
A love for the Quran as a book of guidance
02
الدين
Deen
Deen is taught thematically rather than by textbook. The school picks a theme and every grade takes it on in a way its age can hold, which means a family with three children of different ages is having one conversation at home instead of three.
Classes are grouped by age, because the questions a child asks about how to live change faster than their reading does.
03
...and in between
This is the school's own name for it, and it is the part no curriculum can be written for.
It is the friendship a child makes with someone they would never have met at their weekday school. It is the question asked in the hallway that the class was too shy for. It is a teenager who has been coming since kindergarten helping a five-year-old find the right room. It is the habit of showing up on a Sunday morning when you could be anywhere else.
It is also, in the school's experience, the part children remember longest.
HOW CHILDREN ARE PLACED
Arabic: by placement test
A short test before the year starts, so a child sits with others reading at the same level. It is not an exam and nobody passes or fails it.
Deen: by age
Deen classes are grouped by the age of the student.
OUR TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Children have enough
homework during the week.
We don't give homework to
children. We give it to the parents!
What that means in practice: the school asks parents to reinforce what is taught by doing it, not by quizzing. Praying as a family. Giving as a family. Serving the community as a family.
A child who is told about charity learns a word. A child who watches a parent give learns a habit. The school has decided which of those it is in the business of.
WHAT THE YEAR BUILDS TOWARD
DECEMBER 13, 2026
Deen Showcase
The end of the first semester. The children present what they have been working on since September, to each other and to their families.
MAY 9, 2027
Arabic Final Exams
A year of reading, in one morning.
MAY 16, 2027
Quran Competition
The last day of school, and the one the whole year points at.