Lower School (Grades K-5)

Program and Goals

The Lower School provides a rich learning environment that holistically nurtures the intellectual, social, emotional, and moral growth of each child. Staffed by caring and professional educators, dedicated to helping all children reach their potential, the school's educational program is both challenging and enriching. Classroom teachers work collaboratively with specialists in the visual and performing arts, music, physical education, computer and library science, and with administrators and staff, to deliver high-level, integrated instruction in a supportive, safe, and respectful environment.

In partnership with parents and the community as a whole, the school strives to help students achieve the following Expected School-Wide Learning Results (ESLRS) to become:

-Competent learners
-Sophisticated and perceptive thinkers
-Effective communicators
-Culturally aware individuals
-Responsible individuals, and
-Wholesome young men and women

The Lower School educational program reflects the school's ongoing efforts to incorporate current educational research about instruction, assessment, and learning, as well as to provide a comprehensive, integrated, and developmentally-appropriate series of expectations designed to support the school's educational goals.

School Day

Classrooms open at 7:40 a.m. each school day. Students should be in their classrooms by 7:50 a.m. The school day ends at 2:45 p.m. Pick-up time is 2:45-3 p.m.

Values and Ethics

The Lower School strives to provide an environment where faculty and students are focused and intentional in their efforts to provide values education to all students. Being part of a caring school community that fosters cooperation, communication, emotional expression, appreciation of diversity, and conflict resolution prepares a foundation for social and emotional learning that helps children create meaningful and enduring relationships. Through these efforts, we will continue to reap the benefits of having classrooms where teachers help children build inclusive, equitable, caring, and respectful communities, reflective of the school as a whole.

HPA considers the spiritual and artistic dimensions of life important facets of a young person's holistic educational experience. Visits to Davies Chapel place emphasis on the ethical standards and spiritual values shared by the world's great religious traditions that affirm life and enhance what is honorable and good. Our school-wide concepts of kindness and respect stress specific points of reference to model, focus on, and remember during the entire year. The school affirms its own traditions and its religious diversity and seeks to encourage students to develop an understanding and respect for spiritual and ethical values.


Specialists

In addition to the core curriculum of reading, writing, math, science, and social studies, specialists provide developmentally-appropriate instruction unique to the individual grade levels in music, performing arts, physical education, library science, visual arts, and computer education.