POLARIS OVERVIEW
POLARIS is for students who need additional support in learning due to language or a wide range of what are commonly referred to as "learning disabilities". These students will otherwise face great frustration and often failure in the typical school setting, especially one as demanding as ACS-Sharjah. Additionally, there are students who excel in one or many academic areas and are not being allowed to develop their talents to the fullest extent while also striving to bring other areas of academic, communication and social skills to an equal level as their gifted subjects. There are also students where English will not be their preferred language and our POLARIS ESL Program is for these students.
Typically, schools have offered what is called "support" for students with language issues or learning disabilities. Many of these support programs rarely address the core issues preventing students from becoming independent and lifelong learners and often do nothing more than lower the expectations that students are expected to achieve. This "lowering of the river", rather than "raising the bridge" philosophy leads to inflated grades and students who do not or rarely succeed in life after their school years. Meanwhile the students identified as "gifted" are only seen for their areas of strength while the other subjects and social skills go forgotten causing frustration and learning gaps.
The POLARIS program is the brainchild of Dr. Robert Spellman, Headmaster of ACS Sharjah, and was developed by a team of highly qualified specialists in the areas of reading, brain-based education, special education (including gifted students), language specialization and English as a second language, with the common goal of developing tools and techniques that help students reach the rigorous and relevant goals of the curriculum.
Dr. Spellman has 25 years experience in working with students in specialist and regular settings, all focused on maintaining a high standard and rigor for students to a gain success through a feeling of accomplishment.
Dr. Spellman's qualifications include a Bachelor of Science, majoring in education and specializing in special education of learning disabled students from Illinois State University. ISU is one of the premier universities in the area of special education across the world.
He has a Masters of Science, majoring in school administration focusing on operation of school facilities. He also has a Doctorate from Nova South Eastern University in Davies, Florida focusing on school leadership, specializing in implementing reading and writing programs throughout K-12 Schools.
Dr Spellman has written "Making Every Class a Reading Class" on the use of the Lexile Framework for Reading and was also involved in the formulation of the book "Specialized Reading: Helping all Students Become Good Readers". Dr. Spellman has also presented at national and international conferences on reading, student motivation, brain-based education, report writing, staff development and is a chairperson for regional school accreditation teams.
It is the goal of the program to work with students holding high expectations so that their achievement is authentic and allows each student the opportunity to experience continued school and career fulfillment, well after leaving ACS Sharjah.
