 Welcome to the Lower School where the TCS mission is alive each day. The Lower School, encompassing grades Preschool through 4, appreciates and respects the children's natural enthusiasm for learning, curiosity about their world, and joy in being part of a special community.
The Lower School program is designed to include a thoughtful balance appropriate to the developmental stage of the different grade levels. Each day children will experience vigorous activity and quiet time; traditional academic subjects and the arts, physical education and foreign language; time inside the classroom and outside on our beautiful campus; and whole group instruction and individual attention.
In Lower School, there is an emphasis placed on the developing social/emotional life of each child. Students are seen as individuals with unique strengths. We foster self-confidence and self-awareness as important ingredients for success in learning and living. Children in Lower School are given many opportunities to contribute - through classroom jobs, service commitments, performances, and class meetings.
Fourth Graders glow with pride as they assume positions of responsibility raising and lowering our flag and collecting the attendance sheets each morning. A PreK student excitedly shares her painting - joyfully pointing out each color she has freely brushed upon the paper. Bent over their desks, Second Graders attack the Math "Problem of the Day." Listen, watch and be awestruck. Lower School children are at work, thoroughly engaged in their school experience.
While we strongly believe that the Lower School child's needs differ from the needs of the Middle School child, their educational experiences are indeed connected. The hum of young children immersed in challenging learning becomes the louder, sometimes boisterous buzz of the Seventh Graders engaged in discussion and discourse. The exuberance of expression with colors on paper opens the doors of creative expression and thinking in the Sixth Grade writer. The feelings of pride and accomplishment gained through assuming roles of responsibility in Lower School encourage leadership in all their years to follow.
To live among the Lower School children is to witness first hand the fascinating and wondrous stages of childhood. It is tempting, and sometimes important, to focus only on the skills and experiences unique to the younger years. On the other hand, it is essential that we do not lose sight of the role they play in the whole process of growth or the ways that a TCS Lower School experience fits in the eleven-year TCS experience.
In Lower School it is our work to appreciate the connectedness of childhood, pre-adolescence, and adolescence as we respect, challenge, support, and love the children in Preschool through Fourth. |
