Lower School

A Caring Community for Children with Complex Challenges

The Quaker School’s Lower School helps children from grades K-5 reach their potential while learning in a supportive community.

Our first priority: to make your child feel like he or she belongs. Once students feel safe and confident, they are better able to learn.

All classes use research based methods to promote behavior, social and academic growth.
During Morning Meeting in homeroom, students gather, greet one another, share news, and get ready for the day ahead. Our teachers model proper social interactions.
Teachers use positive words and tone to promote our students’ sense of belonging, active learning and self-discipline.
Direct Instruction is used to teach to mastery
We introduce classroom materials using guided discovery, a format that encourages independence, creativity and responsibility.
Using a theme-based curriculum, teachers link different disciplines so that students develop “big” and important ideas, which helps broaden their thinking.
Our classrooms are designed to encourage students’ independence, cooperation and productivity.

Learn how to control his or her emotions and impulses
Understand and be more aware of his or her thought processes
Learn how to speak for him or herself and take control of his or her interests and life
Excel quickly in critical academic areas

To learn more about these individual programs, visit our Academics page.

Our visiting artist series brings in practicing artists ranging from spoken word poets to samba dancers to teach music and dance.
Our softball and cross-country teams compete against other independent schools.
Classes visit art and science museums, zoos, aquariums, and other historical and cultural institutions on frequent filed trips.
Students learn empathy, executive functioning and social skills by visiting Special Equestrians for 8 weeks each year.

Projects have included:

Mitten Tree collection, benefitting a Philadelphia shelter for women and children, disabled U.S. Veterans, and Hurricane Katrina relief
Fundraising for Hope Children’s Home in Guyana, which has helped the organization purchase a stove, shoes and a van in recent years
The Penny Challenge and Canned Food Drive, which raises funds and food for the homeless
Socktober, which collects new socks for people in need

Technology in the Lower School include:

1:1 iPads for K-2 and 1:1 Chromebooks including speech to text and text to speech on each device
Basic keyboarding
Reinforcing academic skills using developmentally appropriate software
Writing and illustrating simple words and sentences in a multimedia format
Use of interactive SMART boards, iPads and MacBooks
Numerous supplemental academic software programs that include graphic organizers, speech synthesizers, electronic dictionaries, and word prediction