Primary Years Programme (PK-5)

EMBRACING THE WHOLE CHILD

Children at LJA begin each day with free choice followed by a morning meeting to transition smoothly into their day. This is an opportunity for teachers to understand what the child is experiencing, adjust learning as needed, and support learners with empathy, resilience, and other integral social emotional skills. At LJA, learners are nurtured through a range of developmentally appropriate experiences that support the cognitive, personal, social, and physical needs of every child. Whether in the classrooms, up in the forest, working in the marsh, or learning offsite, our caring educators meet the needs of each and every learner with personalized instruction.

CORE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

In the Primary Years Programme (PYP), learners acquire foundational skills, mindsets, and dispositions that will prepare them for lifelong success. 

Disciplinary skills–such as reading, writing, math, science, social studies, and design thinking–are all taught through shared inquiry ensuring students acquire necessary skills. Additionally, visual arts, performing arts, physical and health education, and world languages are taught at designated times throughout each week. PK and JK students learn French. In grades K-5, students may select from Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish, or Japanese.

The IB Approaches To Learning (ATL) skills transcend all learning contexts and develop in students a growth mindset, nurturing learners who persist through challenges, reflect and set goals, and develop inner confidence.

LJA Approaches to Learning

SHARED INQUIRY

Throughout the school year, students explore real-world, authentic issues of local and global significance as a class through transdisciplinary units of inquiry. The IB Primary Years framework provides balance to help educators ensure that all students are developing core skills, knowledge, and conceptual understanding through their exploration. Units are co-constructed by the teacher, who ensures that all core knowledge and skills are mastered, and by the student, who also has the opportunity to follow their own questions that arise as they deepen their understanding. Students are encouraged to take action for and from their learning.

PERSONAL INQUIRY

All learners have unique interests and passions. Each week, students are offered time and mentorship to identify their own personal interests, set goals, plan their journeys, monitor their progress, and celebrate their successes.

Additionally, a broad offering of after-school activities and opportunities to explore concepts further during shared inquiry often inform and support students’ choices and direction of their personal learning journey. 

CAPSTONE PROJECTS

The PYP culminates in the PYP exhibition during Grade 5, a year-long collaborative inquiry in which student teams explore an issue of local and global significance to showcase their learner agency at its best. Through this exploration, students drive the entire learning process-–from creating their central idea and lines of inquiry, identifying and connecting with potential mentors and experts, collecting primary research, designing and scheduling their own field trips, organizing materials, and collaborating to refine their own understanding of the issue, its complexities, and the different perspectives surrounding it as they prepare and share their learning with others.

EVIDENCING LEARNING

Using the IB ATL skills (social, self-management, thinking, communication, and research skills), as a framework for developmental expectations, teachers collect evidence around student mastery in a variety of ways in order to inform where to challenge each student next. Students are actively involved in the process, setting their own goals around end-of-year expectations, co-constructing rubrics, and reflecting on their progress. 

Communication with families is an important aspect of our program. Parents receive regular communication about student growth through an assessment folder that is sent back and forth between the school and the home. Student-led conferences take place in both Fall and Spring (teacher-led for PK and JK). Progress reports that summarize growth and learning are distributed in January and June.

ACTION AND LEADERSHIP

In the PYP, we believe in equipping and empowering students not just to make a difference in the future, but to make a difference now. All students have the opportunity to join a leadership academy to improve their school, community, or the world. Whether they are starting a business, helping in the paddock, or advocating for change at the legislature, LJA learners routinely take action on their learning by making a positive impact.

STUDENT SUPPORT

Le Jardin Academy is an inclusive learning environment that aims to increase access and engagement in learning for our students by identifying and removing barriers. We believe in creating a culture of inquiry, collaboration, mutual respect, and problem solving. Learners, teachers, and parents, as a whole share responsibility for ensuring support to a broad range of students to address the diversity of all students.

The Student Support Team works in coordination with the students, parents, teaching assistants, specialists, coaches, and even the school nurse to best support a child. The team collaborates to determine the distinct needs of the student and the various accommodations and interventions that can be made to improve their success at school. Support may be given one-on-one, but primarily it is provided in a small group setting. Support may be within the student's classroom, learning support room, or counselor's office. Student Support FAQs