How does the curriculum work?

The goal of our curriculum is for learners to master all the most essential skills for future success: both academics and real-world skills like innovative thinking and collaboration. We don’t believe these skills should be an ‘add-on’ to literacy, social studies, and science. At Prisma, these competencies are authentically fused together in interdisciplinary themes like Cities of the Future or Unsolved Mysteries. 

Every theme includes both independent work and live workshops where learners collaborate and debate. Learners start by exploring foundational concepts, then create their own projects, which they proudly present at our Expo Day celebration.

Each year at Prisma is a journey through a set of themes covering different skills and subjects. Our curriculum team has carefully mapped our scope of themes using international standards to ensure comprehensive coverage. All learners walk away from a theme having learned the same core skills, and they have immense choice within the theme to tailor it to their interests. 

• For Lower School (grades 4-5) & Middle School (grades 6-8), themes last 6 weeks and infuse key competencies with choice. For example, in Build a Business, all learners cover basic economics but tailor the business they launch to their interests—whether they create a store to sell their art, a video game design company, or a babysitting service. Learners earn Badges for the academic and real-world skills in their projects.‍
• High School themes run 12 weeks, each awarding credit toward graduation and college entrance requirements. Each theme provides an expansive, real-world way to earn these credits. For example, a learner earns their Biology credit by completing the Future of Health theme—where they study the human body and design a health innovation for a specific patient—and their Environmental Science credit through the Secrets of the Biosphere theme—where they complete field work to study their local ecosystem and envision an intervention to improve it.