Our Lower School program is guided by our 4-Fold Plan of Education whole-child philosophy that balances academics, the arts, physical development and moral education. It blends tradition and structure with a developmental methodology, which engages students in active learning and allows our teachers to address differences in student learning styles. We place a heavy emphasis on the development of compassionate children.
Our kindergarten program focuses on social, emotional, cognitive and physical development; in grades one and two, the emphasis shifts to the process of acquiring learning skills and strategies in core academic disciplines. In the upper grades of the Lower School, as students gain mastery of reading and writing, learning how to learn and gaining knowledge of self as learners becomes central as student prepare for the academic challenges of Middle School.
We have special programs for the development of literacy skills. Our literature-based reading program is intended to develop a love of reading in addition to developing skills in decoding, comprehension, listening and thinking, and an understanding of story structure. Our writing workshop program spans all grades and has led to a dramatic increase in our standardized WrAP (writing assessment) scores.
Across all grades, students are immersed in a rich program of weekly specialist classes including computer science, dance, theatre, visual arts, music, and physical education. We believe that physical education and arts education are not only important in and of themselves, but are core components of academic success.
Our talented faculty includes: two teachers in each classroom in kindergarten through third grade; associate teachers in the fourth and fifth grades who work with both of the grade’s homeroom classes; and a deep roster of talented specialists teaching subjects from science and math to art, dance and theatre. Our teachers are very active in professional development and as a group have been particularly engaged in learning about current brain research and its implication for education and the classroom. Based on this learning we have reduced the amount of homework we assign and, one night per week, we substitute “heartwork” assignments that are associated with personal reflection and moral development.