Where Vital Academics
Meet a Deep Respect for Childhood

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Lower School

Welcome from Division Head Sarah Beck

I’m excited and proud to tell you about Langley’s vibrant Lower School. Our program gradually and intentionally shapes the critical years between Primary School and Middle School. Through our inquiry-based curriculum, students in grades 1-5 develop academic skills that allow them to ask important, probing questions and apply their learning to develop and improve their mastery of skills such as creativity, communication, critical thinking, and collaboration.

In first grade, children begin reading books independently, then move from learning to read to reading to learn between second and third grades through nonfiction texts. By third grade they’re writing, publishing, and sharing their own books. The math curriculum spirals throughout the Lower School years to build foundational skills in number sense, operations, fractions, decimals, and other concepts. Students work cooperatively and independently to apply strategies to real-life problems as they develop meta-cognitive thinking. In science, students grow from seeking to understand states of matter as first-graders to performing lab exercises to demonstrate and evaluate Newton’s three laws of motion as fifth-graders.

By integrating the curriculum with children’s developmental stages, our expert teachers ensure that every child’s emotional intelligence and academic achievement continually strengthen each other. Inside and beyond the classroom, our supportive community helps students take meaningful risks as they develop their creativity, perseverance, and self-awareness. By the end of fifth grade, our students are ready and eager to move on to our Middle School.

Please take a few moments to review important features of our program. I invite you to contact me with any questions, and to visit our Lower School in person. I would love to meet you and your family.

Sarah Beck
Head of Lower School
Assistant Head for Programs

Our Program

To continue building each child’s curiosity, empathy, intelligence, creativity, and well-being, our Lower School program engages and encourages students at every level. Interdisciplinary, inquiry-based lessons – combining the core disciplines with world language, music, art, drama, library skills, technology, and physical education – inspire students to notice previously unexplored connections, ask probing questions, and seek hands-on, creative solutions.
 



    Lower School Hours

    Grades 1-5:
    8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

    Optional Extended Day:
    3:00 – 6:00 p.m.