In our Elementary School, we focus on the crucial primary years of Kindergarten through 5th grade, where children develop a myriad of social, emotional, and academic skills while contributing to a growing sense of themselves as connected, competent, and confident learners.
K-5 at a glance:
- Highly-qualified head teachers and dedicated support teachers.
- Social emotional practices supporting a sense of belonging and emotional safety for all children.
- Thematic, project-based learning that fosters a sense of autonomy and competency.
- Integrated units of study that connect language arts, service learning, design thinking, science, and social studies, with an embedded social justice component focused on “changemakers” and the development of a sense of agency and an Antiracist stance.
- Specialist Classes: Visual arts, Spanish/music, and physical education round out our dynamic curriculum.
- Before school care starting at 7:45 am and after school care until 5:45 pm daily, including a variety of enrichment options, such as cooking, dance, drama, or martial arts.
- Beautiful, developmentally-appropriate classrooms and expansive outdoor play yard, plus access to the Mills College at Northeastern University soccer field, gymnasium, and swimming pool for PE.
Student interest, teacher passion, and Common Core content standards form the basis of our curriculum mapping. Teaching and learning are infused with creative approaches that meet the needs of all children, and our strong academics are enriched with additional expert teaching for Spanish/music, art, and physical education.
We do not administer state testing; instead, formative and authentic assessments inform our curriculum decisions. We offer parent-teacher conferences twice a year, as well as bi-annual progress reports that convey a thorough description of each child’s mastery of the content knowledge, without letter grades.
Our K-5 classrooms serve students with a range of ages and skills. As psychologist Lev Vgotsky describes in social learning theory, children working in collaboration have expanded opportunities to learn from and to teach one another.
Our 4th and 5th graders get to be the “big kids on campus” and mentor students in our younger elementary and early childhood programs. At the same time, they are free from the pressures of older adolescent influences at school. Our graduates leave prepared for the academic and social challenges of the best middle schools in the Bay Area.
