Curriculum proposal · Kindergarten – Grade 6
Sola Schola
A Reformed Baptist classical curriculum for the home, specified to the objective for Kindergarten through grade 6 and outlined through grade 12.
- Doctrinal standard
- The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)
- Catechetical standard
- A Catechism for Boys and Girls (144 questions), then The Baptist Catechism — Keach's, 1695 (114 questions)
- Pedagogy
- Classical, trivium-structured: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric
What this is, and what it is not
A specification, not a boxed curriculum.
This is a specification, not a boxed curriculum. It says what a child should be able to do, how you will know, and what counts as knowing it. It deliberately does not say "open Saxon to lesson 43 on Tuesday." Publishers are named as recommendations you can swap; the objectives are what persists when you change publishers, which you will.
Measurable means falsifiable
Every objective names an assessment and a criterion that could come back negative. "Appreciates good literature" is not an objective. "Recites ten selections from memory, including one Shakespeare passage of at least twelve lines, at 85% or better on the delivery rubric" is. If you cannot imagine the child failing it, it is not measuring anything.
Mastery is expensive on purpose
The scale reserves its top two levels for evidence gathered across time — two demonstrations a week apart, then a delayed check thirty days out. Most curricula implicitly mark mastery on the day of the lesson, which measures your teaching rather than the child's retention.
Doctrine is a strand, not a varnish
Bible and catechism are the first two of ten strands, taught daily and assessed like everything else — not a devotional preamble to the real school day.
The convictions that shape it
Where a Reformed Baptist curriculum actually differs from a generic classical Christian one.
The confession is the standard, and the child will be taught it
By the end of Tier 3 the student can name the thirty-two chapters of the 1689 and expound eight of them with proof texts. This is not indoctrination-by-volume; it is giving a child a map of what his family believes and where each belief is anchored in Scripture, so that he is able to examine it rather than merely absorb it.
No presumption of regeneration
This is the sharpest difference from the Presbyterian classical materials that dominate the market, and it changes the grammar of instruction. The child is not addressed as though he were already in Christ by virtue of his parents. He is taught the law and the gospel, told plainly that he must be born again, and expected to explain — by Tier 1 — what sin is and why Christ had to die. Objectives are written as "explain," "state," "defend," never as "affirm your covenant standing."
Baptism is taught, not assumed
The student defends believer's baptism from Scripture and states two reasons Baptists do not baptize infants — fairly, without caricature. In Tier 3 he compares the 1689 with Westminster on baptism and church government, and the rubric explicitly grades whether the Presbyterian position is stated in terms a Presbyterian would accept. A child who can only mock the other side has not been taught the issue.
The regulative principle reaches the music curriculum
Hymnody and psalmody are graded skills in the Fine Arts strand, tracked against what your congregation actually sings, so that memory work serves the Lord's Day rather than competing with it. The student states the family's position and one reason another faithful church might differ.
Family worship is structural, not supplementary
The Bible and Catechism objectives assume daily family worship is already happening. If it is not, start there before adjusting anything else — the curriculum is built to orbit it, and without it the doctrine strand becomes a school subject like any other, which is exactly the failure mode it exists to prevent.
History has an Author, and historical figures are sinners
The student evaluates a historical figure he admires against Scripture, acknowledging good and evil in the same person. Providence is not a license for hagiography, and the objective is graded on whether the student resisted turning the person into either a hero or a villain.
Science is honest about its limits without becoming apologetics
The student separates empirical claims from philosophical ones in real science texts, at least one written by a non-Christian and taken seriously on its own terms — and is graded on whether his own theological claims are stated as such rather than dressed up as scientific findings. Avoid curricula that substitute apologetics for laboratory work; the student needs both, distinctly.
Six tiers
Tiers are not grades. A child works where the evidence puts him — it is normal to sit in T2 for Latin while working T3 mathematics.
| Tier | Grades | Trivium | The aim | Obj. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T0 · Foundations | K | Grammar | That the child can sit under the Word, hold attention for twenty minutes, sound out a word, count a hundred things, and answer thirty catechism questions with joy. | 37 |
| T1 · Early Grammar | 1–2 | Grammar | That the child reads to learn rather than learning to read, and carries a stock of memorized Scripture, catechism, poetry, and math facts. | 47 |
| T2 · Grammar | 3–4 | Grammar | That the child can find, record, summarize, and recite — and can give a reason from Scripture for what his family believes. | 50 |
| T3 · Upper Grammar | 5–6 | Grammar → Dialectic | That the student can defend a claim in writing, complete the Baptist Catechism, and hold a doctrine across both Testaments. | 56 |
| T4 · Dialectic | 7–9 | Logic | That the student can detect a bad argument, build a good one, and read the Confession with its proof-texts. | Outlined |
| T5 · Rhetoric | 10–12 | Rhetoric | That the young adult can speak and write persuasively, give a reasoned defense of the faith, and leave home with a transcript and a confession. | Outlined |
T4 and T5 are outlined on purpose. Write their objectives when your eldest is a year out from the tier — the detail is only useful once you know the child who will meet it, and the market will have changed by then.
Ten strands
Coverage across the specified tiers.
| Strand | Cadence | T0 | T1 | T2 | T3 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bible & Doctrine | Daily, first thing, with family worship. | 6 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 31 |
| Catechism & Confession | Daily, 5–10 minutes; review cycles weekly. | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 12 |
| Language Arts | Daily. | 5 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 25 |
| Literature & Recitation | Daily reading; recitation weekly; formal presentation each term. | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 15 |
| Latin | Daily from Tier 1; 20–40 minutes. | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| Mathematics | Daily, 30–60 minutes, plus 5 minutes of fact drill. | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 26 |
| History & Geography | 3–4 days per week. | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 15 |
| Science & Nature Study | 2 days per week plus a weekly outdoor nature study. | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Fine Arts & Music | Singing daily; art or composer study 1–2 days per week. | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 14 |
| Practical Arts, Logic & Character | Daily chores and physical activity; logic 1 day per week from Tier 2. | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 18 |
Measuring
One five-point scale, used identically across every objective.
Not yet taught.
Performs only with direct, step-by-step help.
Performs with prompts; ≥70% accuracy.
Independent; ≥85% on two occasions ≥7 days apart.
Retained and transferred; ≥90% on a delayed check ≥30 days later.
Level 3 requires spacing. You cannot reach Proficient in one sitting, which forces the review cycle you need anyway.
Level 4 requires forgetting risk. The delayed check measures what survived, not what was recently rehearsed.
Regression is expected. If a child slips from 3 to 2, record it — the original mastery date is kept, and the term report shows movement rather than a snapshot.
Catechism
Tracked question by question, not as a single “doing catechism” checkbox.
A Catechism for Boys and Girls
144The simplified Particular Baptist children's catechism (Grace Baptist Church, Carlisle, PA lineage). Short answers suited to oral recitation from age 4. This is the primary catechism for Tiers 0-2.
Public domain sourceThe Baptist Catechism (Keach's Catechism, 1695)
114The confessional catechism of the Particular Baptists, drawn up by William Collins for the 1693 General Assembly and companion to the 1689 Second London Confession. Begun in Tier 2 alongside CBG and completed across Tiers 3-4.
Public domain sourceWhere to start
If you adopt nothing else from this, adopt the order.
- 1
Family worship daily
If it is not already happening, everything in the Bible and Catechism strands assumes it. Nothing else here works without it.
- 2
Catechism, five minutes a day
Open the catechism page, use quiz mode, mark what the child gets cold. Questions 1–30 of Boys and Girls is a year's work for a five-year-old and the foundation of everything above it.
- 3
Reading and arithmetic to fluency, before broadening
A child who reads fluently and knows his math facts cold can be taught anything. A child who does not will struggle in every other strand — and the struggle will look like a history problem or a science problem when it is neither.
- 4
Then everything else
Ten strands is a lot on paper. In practice Tier 0 is ninety minutes and half of it is out of doors. Do not run the whole specification at a child who is five.