What is Block 6?

                  

Or somewhere in between?

When I first started teaching at Hoyt, I heard about the Block 6 intervention opportunity.  I couldn't believe how lucky students were to have designated time after school when a teacher or another caring adult could help them with work. Unfortunately many students do not see Block 6 as an opportunity.

In seventh grade math, students are expected to reach proficiency on each formative assessment.  The  assessments are designed to help teachers evaluate students' understanding of weekly content.  These assessments (called CFA's) are completed on Thursday each week.  If a student is not proficient (8/10 points), s/he has an opportunity to review the material DURING CLASS on Friday and be assessed on the same material a second time.  Students who are proficient use this time to participate in a spiral review through a game of Jeopardy or applications on the iPads.  Students who are not proficient on Thursday or Friday are invited to participate in Block 6 on the following Monday.  

Monday Block 6 provides students with smaller group (often individual) instruction and another chance (third) to reach proficiency.  Unfortunately seventh-graders are often not mature enough to recognize this opportunity as the academic gift that it is, and frame it instead as a kind of punishment.  

How can you help?  

First, if possible, try not to schedule other things for Mondays and Thursdays after school. Second, if your student is scheduled for Block 6, give him/her permission to stay.  Late busses run on Mondays and Thursdays and deliver students to your door after 4:00 PM on those nights.  Finally, if your students is invited to attend Block 6 and doesn't take advantage of this opportunity, contact the teacher and talk with him/her about what else you can do to provide this kind of help at home.  

Remember that, like you, we are here to help your child be successful in seventh-grade math and in life.