Yes! It's the Lower School!

Jane Doe
Carolyn Hale

Jane Doe

Grade 3

Alex

We take STEAM class in our homeroom. You start sitting at the rug. The teacher explains what project we will work on that day—like designing snowflakes and printing them on the 3D printer. Or building a tower using paper and tape. Then we go to our tables and talk with our teammates and make a plan. We get to work together and be creative. There’s a lot of excitement in the room.

We get to work together and be creative. There's a lot of excitement in the room.

Carolyn Hale

Head of Lower School

Jane Verlin

One of the many reasons I love working at GFA — and one of the many reasons I believe we are such a strong institution — is that we are constantly going through the process of self-evaluation. The guiding force throughout this process is always our mission statement and our core values, and our students sit at the center of every decision. As a team, we truly believe in teaching our students not just for school but for life.

We truly believe in teaching our students not just for school, but for life.

The journey is the destination.

Each grade in Lower School is a step (or a hundred steps!) in a journey. Our teachers create an intentional, immersive experience that moves naturally from one week (and month, and year) to the next. We pay attention to fundamental skills and habits of mind, but we also practice leadership, develop social connections, and explore the outdoors. The result is a safe, fun, challenging education in cooperation and creative thinking, risk taking and resilience, identity and independence.

A word about what we wear.

Lower Schoolers wear uniforms. Why? They make getting dressed in the morning super-simple, they keep everything equal, and they convey a general sense of respect for learning. Also: The language in our actual dress code isn’t gendered; the same rules apply to everyone. Details matter. So does an inclusive, affirming community.

What leadership looks like.

Our fourth graders—the oldest students in the Lower School—take an active role in leading their community. Together, we organize committees (Greeting, Garden, Assembly, Community Service, and Student Perspectives) that allow students to debate issues, make recommendations, and take responsibility for the well-being of the school.

What it feels like to be here.

It’s spacious, light-filled classrooms. It’s family-style lunches and bi-weekly assemblies. It’s a full gymnasium and an organic garden, a science lab and a robust service learning program. It’s dedicated classrooms for world languages and music and art and technology. It’s a salt marsh and Audubon trails. It’s a playground and a courtyard and a community assembly room. Most of all, it’s the warmth and spirit and brilliance of the inspiring people who want to be here.

For young children, school starts with relationships. That’s what I love about bundling up twice daily to spend recess with the kids. That’s what I love about the ways in which our teachers truly know our students. That’s what I love about family-style lunch in the Lower School. When you break bread with folks, you get to know them at a new level.
Head of Lower School

The Lower School Journey

PreK: Self Reliance

Kindergarten: Cooperation

Kindergarten is the foundation for students to embrace the joy in learning and to begin to contribute to GFA's inclusive spirit. Students cultivate a connection to our world and begin to understand their place in it. Cooperative work and play is the cornerstone of the program that activates the development of intellectual curiosity, social acuity and emotional intelligence.

First Grade: Risk Taking and Creative Thinking

The first grade program fosters a love of learning and helps students deepen connections to the school community and the world at large. Students are encouraged to be creative thinkers- to use what they know to figure out what they do not know. Students explore multiple ways to solve problems and are empowered to take risks. Working independently and cooperatively, mistakes are seen as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Second Grade: Persistence

Third Grade: Resilience

Fourth Grade: Identity and Independence

Fourth grade is a year-long journey of embracing one’s self and the role each student plays in the Lower School community. Students learn to take ownership of their own learning and take on formal leadership roles with increased responsibility and independence. The fourth grade year is a celebration of the culmination of skills and time in the Lower School while preparing for life in the Middle School.

curriculum

GFA’s Lower School students grow intellectually, realize personal creativity, and competency, develop self-confidence, build enthusiasm for excellence and achievement, and gain respect for the diversity of the world around them. Small group work, hands-on learning, personal challenge and responsibility, and an appreciation for the connections among all disciplines are integral components of our program.

My favorite thing about campus: GFA has amazing gardens and trees. Some of the trees are really old! Oh, and the bees!
Alex, grade 3

An almost random, highly meaningful example of the way we work

A little while ago, our PreK students built an exhibit at Earthplace, a nature center in Westport. The exhibit allows you to work through—and possibly help solve!—nitrogen pollution in Long Island Sound. Building it required hands-on work in specialized topics across disciplines: the biology of kelp and oysters, digital photography and computer applications, exhibit design and engineering, sculpting and painting and measuring. And the result was a form of civic engagement. Oh, and the whole process was a blast. All of those things are happening most of the time in the Lower School.

Programs

The RULER Program

The Lower School recognizes that social-emotional learning is as important as the academic. Guided by a team of trained teachers, the Lower School has begun to implement the RULER Program developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. This intentional approach focuses on Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions, and is designed to help children develop empathy and self-regulation strategies.

The Wilson Fundations Program

Students in grades K–3 participate in the Wilson Fundations Program as part of our comprehensive approach to literacy instruction. This multisensory, structured language program provides our students with strong foundational skills, including phonemic awareness, phonics/word study, reading fluency, spelling, and handwriting. Fundations is taught in whole-group, small-group, as well as one-on-one settings.

Math in Focus

Math in Focus is the cornerstone of our math curriculum in the Lower School. Using this program, our teachers focus on conceptual understanding as well as math fluency. Students develop a deeper understanding of new concepts through engaging teacher lessons, repeated practice, and enjoyable activities. Our goal as educators is to help our students develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills so they may persevere, not just in the math classroom, but in the world at large.

STEAM

The school has embraced a hands-on, design-focused approach to integrating STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics) throughout the Lower School program, and as a result is widely perceived as a leader in the field. Working in close concert with homeroom teachers and arts and science specialists, the Lower School Coordinator of Technology engages every class in a range of projects aimed at fostering curiosity and design thinking: e.g., robotics, prototyping, 3D modeling and printing, circuitry, animation, programming, video production, and music making. A recently opened, dedicated Maker Space in the Lower School serves as a hub for constructionist education and a resource for students and faculty alike.

World Perspectives Program

The World Perspectives Program is an integrated collection of globally minded curricular and co-curricular offerings. Interdisciplinary experiences in the Lower and Middle Schools give students their first “world perspectives.” By the time students reach the Upper School and are able to take advantage of international study and travel opportunities, they have already studied other cultures, communicated with peers in other countries, and had several years of language training.

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