Where Will Your Child THRIVE This Fall?
At OES, your child will be transformed by their learning. With a curriculum that evolves with them, a community that cares for them, and a beautiful wooded campus that enfolds them, every child becomes a lifelong learner at OES.
Applications to the Lower School are open for the 26-27 school year. To inquire for specific grades, please contact our Lower School Admissions Associate, Rashida Quinn.
The Lower School community is where the seeds for connectedness, awareness, reflection, and inquiry first take root at OES. We believe that every child is unique and capable, that each of them bring gifts to share and questions to explore. Our emergent program draws from the interests and theories of the children and is influenced by constructivist educators: teachers and thinkers like Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and the educators of Reggio Emilia, Italy. In this tradition we believe that learning is an active process, and that learners who construct their own knowledge are most likely to remember their learning, make discoveries, and apply learning to new contexts. We are a community who believes in social constructivism, an understanding that human knowledge is often heightened and deepened by interaction with others.
Application Steps
A child must be 4 years old by September 1st to begin Pre-K
Beginning Year Highlights (Pre-K through Grade 1)
Visiting our Beginning Years classrooms, you will see curricular components of math, science, and literacies embedded within the children’s experiences. We hope you will also notice the multiple ways the children communicate their important ideas through the arts, their dialogue with the natural world, and our continual emphasis on helping children better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. The social-emotional development of our youngest learners is our highest priority and lays the foundation for the risk-taking, focus, connection, and lifelong learning that lays ahead of them in their years at OES and beyond.
Intermediate Year Highlights (Grades 2-5)
In our Intermediate Years classrooms, you will see how we dive into social studies content, accessing and building upon academic skills to better understand ourselves, our community, and our history. With a solid base of literacy skills to build upon (reading, writing and math), the Intermediate Years challenges students to deepen their understanding of these skills and concepts, to utilize and build upon these critical literacies to uncover new truths and perspectives.
About the Primary Class Option
For children who would benefit from a gift of time, a year to grow and develop between Kindergarten and First Grade, OES offers the Primary class option. We look at our Primary program as an opportunity to slow things down, to allow time for progress, time to flourish. Families choose Primary for their children for a myriad of reasons, but one commonality tends to be that of the child who might be stronger, more aware, and more confident with time to grow into his/herself.
Lower School Specialists
After School Program
Ride the Bus
