The Primary Program

Junior 1^st, 1^st, 2^nd grades

Small Classes – 15 children

One teacher per class

Shared teacher aides

Specialized teachers for music, art, foreign language, PE

Mastery-Based skills program

Non-competitive grading

Emphasis on strategies

Strategies screening

Super Learner Clinics

Self-directed learning centers

After-school program

Parent education

Your child is beginning to develop formal strategies for learning and one of our primary goals is to ensure that those strategies are efficient.

Learning will be faster, easier and nonstressful from the start. Efficient strategies also will enable your child to move beyond the basics to higher levels of thinking. By studying the behavior of high achievers, researchers have identified the most effective strategies for reading, writing, spelling, math, homework and test-taking. We teach these strategies here in the classroom.

With a learning strategies screening once a year, we keep track of your child’s step-by-step processes and make recommendations for strengthening them.

Your child participates in a Super Learner Clinic once a year at our learning strategies resource center. Follow-up conferences provide suggestions for how you can encourage efficient strategies as you help your child at home.

Proficiency in the basic skills is also fundamental and we help to ensure it with a mastery-based approach to reading and math.

Every student must demonstrate master, but children are allowed to do so at their own rates. Small classes enable teachers to provide instruction at many different skill levels. Your child’s achievement is measured in terms of individual progress toward mastery. There is no curve grading and no child-to-child comparison. At this age, it’s important to build emotional confidence and script your child for success,

Hands-on math, children’s literature and a Whole Language approach to reading, writing and speaking is used in combination with the Houghton-Mifflin reading and math series. Creative writing, science, social studies, art, music and drama overlap and interrelate.

Learning Centers invite your child to become self directed and to express individuality. Divergent thinking is encouraged. We teach children how to problem solve and help them use the process in matters of discipline and classroom management.

Primary age children are contributing and voting members of Student Council.