Lower School

Early learning has a profound, lifelong effect on social, emotional, moral and academic development, as well as self- esteem. At the Academy of St. Joseph, we give young children the strongest foundation possible, with a program built upon the following philosophies and educational principles:

• Individual children develop at different paces and in different ways.
• Children thrive in learning environments that are engaging, caring, developmentally appropriate, integrated, and challenging.
• An effective curriculum is interdisciplinary with an emphasis on hands-on learning, providing continual opportunities for children to question, research and analyze. This supports a healthy balance among the social, emotional, intellectual and physical development of the individual child.
• The learning environment must provide opportunities for children to explore, to play, to investigate, and to communicate their ideas and findings.
• Observation and documentation of how each child plans, executes, and completes a task is core to the assessment and future curriculum planning for each child.
• Social-emotional intelligence is essential for future life success, thus children have fun developing character, competence and compassion, as well as learning the ins-and-outs of good manners, social grace, etiquette and respect of self and others.