Welcome to the New School Year

Welcome to the start of a new school year!  I am so excited about the teaching and learning that will take place this year from day one all the way until the end of the school year.  It is not enough that our children are learning, or that they are having fun, but rather we must provide them an opportunity for a truly outstanding education.  We want to make sure that most days our children come home and say “Mommy, Daddy guess what I did today?”  We can and will make that happen this year.  The way this will happen is to make learning relevant, fun, hands on, and based on intrinsic motivation from within the student.  This is inquiry learning and this is what the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Program (PYP) is all about.

We have already finalized our first unit for our 2nd and 3rd grade class.  We will begin with Migration which will study how people and animals have moved and how those movements have affected culture and the environment.  For this unit we will be taking one overnight trip and one day trip.  There might also be additional experiential learning opportunities outside the classroom. The purpose of these trips is to inspire, excite and stimulate the learning.  For our overnight trip we will go to China Camp SP near the San Pablo Bay and explore a Chinese Fishing Village that began in the 1880s, to study the migration of Chinese people from Canton (Guangzhou) to the bay area.  We will spend the night in tents in the camp ground near the village.  Before the visit we will be studying the settlement in detail.  After the visit we will continue to explore our questions about the village.  For our day trip we will be going to Angel Island to study the migrations of early Spanish explorers and nineteenth century immigrants many of whom came from China.  As with all trips we will spend several days studying the place we will go before the trip and then after the trip we will continue to find the answers to our follow up questions.

We will not settle for mediocre learning, or even good learning.  We must be determined to engage our children in exciting and engaging opportunities to learn.  If we aim for the stars, to be the best school there is, and if we pursue that goal with vision and perseverance, then I know we will achieve it!  Let’s do what hasn’t been done; let’s revolutionize learning.

- Nathan Pope, Assistant Head of School, PYP Coordinator