Elementary School San Francisco & Silicon Valley (Grades K-5)

La Scuola is enrolling Grade K - 5 students into the Elementary School Program for the 2024-2025 school year. To apply, please complete our application form, in Ravenna. You can always reach out to our Admissions team at 415-551-0000 x 412, or complete our inquiry form.

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At the core of the PYP framework lie six transdisciplinary themes, serving as the backbone for our inquiry-based learning approach. These themes provide a structure that enables students to forge meaningful connections across subjects, diving deep into broad concepts that transcend individual disciplines. By exploring these themes, our students develop a rich understanding of both the human and natural worlds around them. The themes also provide IB World Schools with the opportunity to incorporate local and global issues into the curriculum and effectively allow students to “step up” beyond the confines of learning within subject areas.

1. Who We Are
   Inquiry into the nature of the self; beliefs and values; person, physical, mental, social, and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and cultures; rights and responsibilities; what it means to be human.
    
2. Where We Are in Place and Time
   Inquiry into orientation in place and time; personal histories; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations, and migrations of humankind; the relationship between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.
    
3. How We Express Ourselves
   Inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend, and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic.
    
4. How the World Works
   Inquiry into the natural world and its laws, the interaction between the natural world (physical and biological) and human societies; how humans use their understanding of scientific principles; the impact of scientific and technological advances on society and on the environment.
    
5. How We Organize Ourselves
   Inquiry into the interconnectedness of human-made systems and communities; the structure and function of organizations; societal decision-making; economic activities and their impact on humankind and the environment.
    
6. Sharing the Planet
   Inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.

These trans-disciplinary themes help teachers develop a program of inquiries–investigations into important ideas, identified by the schools, and requiring a high level of involvement on the part of the students. The inquiries are substantial, in-depth, and usually last for several weeks. Since these ideas relate to the world beyond the school, students see their relevance and connect with it in an engaging and challenging way. Students who learn in this way begin to reflect on their roles and responsibilities as learners and become actively involved with their education. All students will come to realize that a unit of inquiry involves in-depth exploration of an important idea, and that the teacher will collect evidence of how well they understand that idea. They will expect to be able to work in a variety of ways, on their own and in groups, to allow them to learn to their best advantage.

Each grade level from 1 to 5 engages with all six themes through carefully crafted units of inquiry. Our early years program (Pre-K and Kindergarten) typically explores four to five units each year. Central to each unit is a conceptual statement - the "central idea" - supported by three or four lines of inquiry linked to specific subject areas.

At La Scuola, we integrate a wide range of subjects into our POI (Points of Inquiry): 

- Languages: Italian, English, Spanish (grades 4 and 5)
- Mathematics
- Arts: Visual Arts and Music
- Science: Homeroom inquiries, Environmental Studies, Technology, and Robotics
- Social Studies: Storia, Geografia, Racial Literacy (Pollyanna curriculum)
- Personal, Social, and Physical Education (PSPE): Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and Physical Education (PE)

While we strive to incorporate these subjects into our transdisciplinary units, we also recognize the importance of subject-specific inquiries. This balanced approach allows for both integrated learning and focused, in-depth exploration of individual disciplines. 
 

The PYP Exhibition

In the final year of the PYP, students carry out an extended, in-depth, collaborative project known as the PYP Exhibition. This involves students working collaboratively to conduct an in-depth inquiry into real life issues or problems. Students collectively synthesize all of the essential elements of the PYP in ways that can be shared with the whole school community. In recent years, PYP Exhibition topics of inquiry have included gender equality, animal rights, and mental health, to name just a few. This reflects the serious ways in which IB learners engage with the world. 

The PYP Exhibition also provides teachers with a powerful and authentic process for assessing student understanding. The exhibition represents a unique and significant opportunity for students to exhibit the attributes of the IB learner profile developed throughout their engagement with the PYP. It enables schools and students to celebrate the transition of learners to the next phase of their education.

At La Scuola, the Reggio Emilia Approach® to learning does not end in preschool.  The IB framework and Reggio approach are integrated so teachers can collaborate with children to inquire, reflect, and explore their own questions throughout elementary and middle school. As a result, our students develop confidence in their ability to learn, think for themselves, express their opinions—often in multiple languages—and respect the opinions of others.

At La Scuola there are two main languages of instruction, Italian and English, which are balanced according to the language immersion Montreal Model as follows:

• Grades K-1: approximately 80% Italian - 20% English
• Grade 2: approximately 70% Italian - 30% English
• Grades 3-5: approximately 50% Italian - 50% English
• Grades 6-8: approximately 30% Italian - 70% English

*Specialist subjects may be taught in English or Italian

From Kindergarten through Grade 2, Italian represents the language of instruction used in the classroom for approximately 80% of the time; the remaining 20% will be delivered in English. From Grade 3, the balance between the languages will be 50% Italian and 50% English and from Grade 6 on it will be 30% Italian and 70% English.

By learning in two languages, students are able to appreciate both Italian and American cultures as a basis for understanding other cultures within the school and within the world, as well as understand the value of global citizenship.

• Early exposure to a second language enables more neural connections to form in a child’s brain, actually improving language skills in the first language.
• Language is a form of cultural expression that transmits information about the communities that use it and forms part of the community identity.
• Language is a tool by which human beings construct knowledge, create meaning, communicate ideas and feelings, and develop relationships with other people.
• The acquisition of multiple languages permits people to develop knowledge about others and increases our chances of understanding the world from different perspectives and cultural paradigms, taking into account other value systems and ways of thinking and feeling.

Inquiry-based

Across all subject areas students are invited to investigate through structured and purposeful inquiry, in line with the IB-PYP curriculum framework. Students are encouraged to be curious, ask questions, and explore and interact with the environment physically, socially, and intellectually. This ensures students are actively engaged in their own learning: they are learning how to learn (metacognition).

Transdisciplinary

Students develop important skills from the traditional subject areas, meeting the requirements of the Common Core as well as the Italian National Curriculum. However, teaching is not confined to addressing subjects in isolation. Students engage in learning through units of inquiry around a central idea, developing enduring understandings across subject areas. 

Reggio Emilia-inspired

La Scuola’s teaching and learning philosophy is inspired by the experience of the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Drawing on theorists Jean Piaget, John Dewey, and Lev Vygotsky, educators in Italy after World War II created a program based on social constructivism, which is the belief that knowledge is constructed through interactions and relationships with others and with the environment. Children learn best through hands-on exploration and interactions with peers and adults in their surroundings. Children organize what they have learned through a process of reflecting, revisiting, and reworking their ideas. They communicate their learning through symbolic representation in many different "languages": the Hundred Languages of Children, as Loris Malaguzzi said. These hundred languages represent the endless number of children’s potentials and the many ways they wonder, inquire and learn.

Read more about the Reggio Emilia Approach®.

Collaborative

Students and teachers work together to develop goals and strategies to improve learning, which often involves group activities focused on skills for leadership, social interaction, and problem solving.

Conceptual

Students are encouraged to engage with significant ideas, providing a context where they can develop conceptual understandings, whilst also acquiring knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

Differentiated

Learning experiences are differentiated to accommodate the range of abilities and learning styles of all students. Teachers use a variety of assessment strategies and tools to provide information about student learning, which is used to inform instruction.

Each day at La Scuola we seek to raise our children into happy, engaged, and curious citizens of the world.

• Lessons reflect real-life experiences as well as traditional subjects
• Subject areas are taught in both English and Italian
• Two styles of teaching (American/European) of similar subject matter provide children more tools for learning

Sample Weekly Schedule

*SG indicates Small Groups. Scroll to the right to view the complete schedule. 

Our blog is frequently updated by our PYP (Primary Years Program) and MYP (Middle Years Program) Coordinators and teachers, touching on a range of exciting academic topics. Most recently, IB-PYP Coordinator Leticia O'Sullivan reflected on building new Primary Years Program descriptors in our recently updated Program of Inquiry (POI). Click this link to read more! 

Fresh fruit or vegetable served each day!

We partner with 54 Mint restaurant and catering to provide organic, whenever possible, locally-sourced daily lunches to our students, faculty and staff. Vegetarian, dairy-free and gluten-free options are available. For our Silicon Valley campus, we partner with Flik Hospitality to provide foods that are fresh, wholesome, and safe to eat.