Rivelon Elementary School uses the Intended Curriculum created by the Orangeburg

Consolidated School District 5. Within the curriculum, each grade level has certain states
standards that it must follow throughout the academic year. The curriculum goes into more detail
about the standards by explaining the subject area and its designated state standard. The
curriculum of the Orangeburg Consolidated School District 5 is focused on bringing a world
class culture of teaching and learning. They plan on doing this through their Teaching and
Learning Framework, which is centered on the three Rs and five Is. The three Rs are rigor,
relevance, and relationships. The five Is are instruct, inform, intervene, improve and include.
Rigor involves helping students develop the capacity to understand content that is
complex, ambiguous, provocative, and personally or emotionally challenging. Students and
teachers in OCSD5 will participate in lessons and activities that go beyond the remembering and
understanding levels of Blooms Taxonomy. They will learn to think and reason critically,
analyze information, justify answers, problem solve, conduct research, and make presentations.
The goal of rigorous instruction is to prepare students for college. Relevance, the second R, is
present when students understand how taught information and skills have application to their
daily life experiences. Teachers will prepare creative lessons that cater to student interests,
talents and concepts. Through this approach, students will understand how these concepts will
apply to their current and future world. The last of the three Rs is relationships. In order for
rigor and relevance to be meaningful, a genuine relationship must exist between student learners
and teacher facilitators. The teachers will use empathy to put themselves in the place of the
students. The district hopes that the three Rs of rigor, relevance, and relationships will produce
high-performing students, teachers and administrators.

Of the five Is, instruct is the only one that mainly deals with curriculum. The instruct
domain encompasses curriculum, planning, instruction, assessment, and classroom environment.
The intended curriculum explains that students are expected to master identified standards and
indicators prior to being promoted to the next grade level. As stated previously, the standards for
each grade level and classroom are set by the state of South Carolina. The second I, inform,
focuses on data driving instruction. The teachers and administrators within the district will rely
on quantitative data and qualitative data. The data will be used and distributed to the district and
school administrators. Intervene requires teachers to remediate when students demonstrate a lack
of mastery. The teachers are forced to become reflective practitioners of personal and student
performance. The overall purpose of intervening is to create plans for all students. Improvement
stresses the school districts drive to achieve excellence. This includes providing art resources,
keeping every student safe, etc. The last I, include focuses on creating meaningful opportunities
that value the experiences and wisdom of community members.
The intended curriculum provided on the website does not give any information regarding
special curricula such as those relating to alcohol/drug use, prevention, etc. Character Education
is used as an elective at Rivelon. I have sat in on lessons about personal hygiene, bullying and
peer pressure. However, at Rivelon Elementary School during the morning announcements an
encouraging message is shared with the students. Majority of the messages promotes positive
character education. At Rivelon Elementary they have several resources that help support
instructing in the curriculum. The first resource would be the iPads. By having the students
interact on these tablets they immediately become more interested in the subject matter, and it
also help build up technology skills. Another instructional resource that I observed was the

computer lab located in the classroom. Having computer access in the classroom helps students,
when several of them need access to the internet.
I believe that each component of the curriculum has the best interest at heart for all of the
students within the district. The curriculum is outlined in detail regarding what standards are to
be taught and how long each subject is to be taught during the day. I see this as a downfall of the
curriculum. Every student does not learn at the same pace. With this restriction, some students
will not be able to fully comprehend the content. The intended curriculum of Orangeburg
Consolidated School District 5 strives to create productive citizens, but it must be remembered
that teaching is an art.